BestBuy, you did something right. Thank you!
The web is just littered with screw-ups by BestBuy, from its policies to indifferent workforce. However, this weekend I had quite the opposite experience, and I felt it worth sharing, for being in the moment, it was as if BestBuy returned to its original roots.
I was looking for a Wii game for my four year old nephew who had come to visit. I wanted something more complicated than Wii Sports and something not so intense as Tiger Woods PGA. The solution was sitting right there on the shelf, Super Swing Golf; the price looked right, so I grabbed it.
At check out, the person rang up my purchases, and the total seemed high — the game was registered as $49.95.
Casually I mentioned, “Is it $49.95? I thought it was $29.95.”
Rather than getting into an argument with me, siding with the computer, or such, the checkout clerk simply said “can you show me where you got it?” And then he flipped off his line light.
I escorted him to the game section, apologizing the whole time in that it most likely was my fault and that perhaps I missed something in my haste. I knew I was going to get the game no matter what the cost, and at this point felt I was wasting his time.
As we got over to the game area, there were three stacks of Super Swing Golf, and there were $49.95 price tags and banners all over the place.
I nodded that he was right, but then something on the second shelf caught my eye. I pointed, and he reached in and pulled in out. There it was a plastic game separator with a yellow label listing “Super Swing Golf $29.95.”
He pulled it out, took it back to the register, overrode the price, and gave it to me for the lower price. He could have just as easily said it was an old sticker, mistake, or misprint – which, to be honest, was what I was expecting.
Anyhow, I walked out of BestBuy more happy about the customer service than I was with getting a good price on the product. And, yes, I’ll be returning to BestBuy soon; I want to reward behavior like that.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that BestBuy has a long history of screw-ups. I also realize that this may be an outlier event. I also realize that this could be a new employee trying to do the right thing before corporate squashes his enthusiasm and sense of business ethics. And I also realize that there may be some legal ground on which BestBuy had to honor the price.
However, all that is irrelevant. What I’m wanting to focus on was the way the employee handled the situation; it was a manner that makes me want to continue being a long-term customer.
By spreading the word that BestBuy can get it right, I’m hoping that someone from BestBuy upper management will eventually see this and realize that this customer service attitude, as shown by this one employee, ought to be how the store should be run as a whole.
For the curious, after giving me the discounted price, the separator was discarded — no other customer will get the discount. This makes perfect sense, as they are simply taking responsibility for their error. The discount I got doesn’t hurt them in the long run either, because it’s very clear that I’m going to be spending well more than the $20 I saved in future visits.