Bad Moment at Best Buy

Last Friday I had ordered an Ipod Nano from Amazon.  Yesterday I checked to see if it had shipped yet - nope.  In fact it was not expected to ship until sometime today.  Ugh.  So I checked out Best Buy to see if my local store had the one I wanted in stock.  They did, so I cancelled my order with Amazon and drove over to Best Buy.  Years ago, when I purchased my first Nano, all Ipods and MP3 players were located in the same department, not so today.  All Apple products are segregated away from everything else; "beneath the Apple sign," is where I was told to look.

There were 4 sales associates in the department, one was attempting to sell an AirMac to some customers, the other 3 were with customers at the registers.  So, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the time.  I work in retail.  Timely Customer Service is important.  A Sales Associate came walking past me on his way to Small Appliances.  I said "excuse me," and he walked right on by. At 2.5 minutes an associate named Zach left his customer at the register and came over to pick up some paperwork setting near the Ipads.  I asked him if he could get someone to help me and he said he would.  A couple minutes after that another customer entered the department, a man wearing a dirty white T-shirt.  We looked at each other and shrugged, both of us figuring we were both going to have to wait.

How can the be so happy when their customer service sucks?

Four and a half minutes after I had initially talked to Zach, he closed his sale and came walking over.  However, instead of asking me what I wanted, he went to the guy with the dirty white T-shirt. I said "excuse me, I was here first."  His reply was "I called someone to help you."  Did he really expect me to wait until the associate he called showed up?  So I said "excuse me, you're expecting me to wait?"  And he made a face and said, in a snippy tone "well, do you have a question or do you know what you want?"  I told him what I wanted "a space gray Nano."  Of course, no one had the keys for the cabinet.  In fact, Zach had to leave the sales floor to get the keys, most likely from the person he called when I first asked him for assistance.

Best Buy's biggest competitor is Amazon.  They know this.  As such you would think they would demand exemplary customer service skills from their sales associates.  This is an example of rotten customer service.  It didn't ruin my day.  This was just a moment at Best Buy.  Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if this experience is repeating itself today, for someone else.