Best Buy Bye

In this day and time, MANY businesses are still in dire need of Customer Service 101 lessons. Who gives businesses these lessons, usually for free – the customers. The biggest problem is businesses no longer listen to customers. I know I have offered my share of suggestions to many businesses myself and know I am not alone. Best Buy is a repeat offender with simply pissing me off!

Best Buy was once topped my list of favorite retailers but after an incident a couple of years ago (http://wp.me/pKLa8-Be), it lost its standing and lost much of my business because I was soured with them. Amazon has yet to let me down with costumer service. As I understand things, Best Buy is not adequately competing with  the likes of Amazon and Best Buy fells to see SERVICE is a key reason.

Any desire to do business with Best Buy is GONE. I hate when I am ignored or dismissed. While trying to order a coffee maker, I wanted to use a Best Reward certificate, a couple Visa gift cards and then the balance on my Best Buy MasterCard. Why did I not just get this in a store? The item I was interested in is only available online, there are no stores close to where I live (at least 60 miles away) and I am disabled and shopping online is the best way for me to shop. I found that online, I could not use multiple forms of payment.

I thought surely if I called, the associate that answered would have no problem with this request. I explained why I called, we rebuilt my order and after all of this he informed me he was not able to use multiple forms of payment either. He told me my only solution was to go in a store where they had that capability. AGAIN I explained the item is only available online, the nearest store was 60 miles away and I have Multiple Sclerosis and jumping in the car and driving 60 miles for a coffee maker was an option I WISH I was up to doing or able to do!

Online ordering did not work, calling in did not work, so surely if I sent an e-mail I would get help finding a solution! I was wrong! After explaining the events in an e-mail I wrote at 10:45PM, I was surprised to receive a reply in less than an hour. It was patronizing and very dismissive; with a link to “Supported Payment Methods” (see screenshot). If you are like me, you read Visa on the list and I was under the impression a Visa gift card could be used anywhere Visa is accepted – except for Best Buy! This angered me! Since Best Buy was so fast to be dismissive to me, I have been fast to post this testimony. Whereas it is good to respond to a customer’s e-mail quickly, if VERY LITTLE EFFORT is used to find a solution it would be best to take a little more time. In fact… the e-mail reply from Best Buy only offered me to call Best Buy Reward Specialists to get help using my Best Buy Reward certificate – THAT HAD NOT BEEN A PROBLEM TO USE… it was the Visa Gift cards! AGAIN, the concern was not even addressed. I am guessing disabled online shoppers are such a small part of Best Buy’s business that they do not care and I got that point.

One benefit I had in this situation was my Best Buy MasterCard had a $0.00 balance. I found a fast solution to reducing the temptation to do business online with Best Buy again – I closed my account! CitiBank issued the Best Buy MasterCard to me and even though CitiBank had not been the problem, the account was closed. Actually, the person I spoke with at CitiBank was VERY friendly and after closing that account, I applied for another card at CitiBank. Both Visa gift cards I had were issued by CitiBank… so I think it is sad their business partners using their MasterCard Rewards credit cards can’t also use their Visa gift cards.

Now I have vented to Best Buy, CitiBank and now you, I will remind Best Buy of something Mr.Pete Blackshaw  says and I quoted the last time I had issue with one of their manager’s – “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000”. I highly suggest Best Buy reads this book because I am still averaging around 3,000 views a month on my little blog here, so in my case… I hit well over a total of 3,000, my total is over 53,000 actually! Bye Best Buy!

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