There’s been a lot of news stories lately about how Best Buy is going in the shitter. Whether it’s the Star Trib. reporting that they couldn’t fill customer’s online orders for Christmas (some placed on the day after Thanksgiving) or the fact that their sales actually declined in December. Forbes even put out an Op-Ed basically stating they’re pretty much going out of businness and not because online retailers are scooping up all their business but because their customer service is shit.
The Forbes article goes into great detail about how the website is awful and going into the store is a nightmare. You’re confronted with employees who don’t have any answers to questions you may have but instead try to sell you some service that you don’t even want.
I really identified with that part of the article not because I’ve been harassed by “customer service” people trying to sell me useless bullshit but because I’ve been that “customer service ” person trying to sell people useless bullshit.
The last job I had for a major media company (doing the obligatory “not naming names” thing even though nobody reads this) I was a “cable tv support specialist” but really I was just a salesperson that kind of knew how to fix cable tv.
We sold three things, tv (which they already had if they were talking to me but could always upgrade), internet and home phone. I was told that my primary job was to resolve technical issues for people that called in but I never had a monthly quota for “resolved issues”. My quota, commission and job hinged on selling people internet and home phone.
The internet was easy enough to sell because I’m an internet junkie and the internet I was selling was the best but land lines? I might as well be trying to sell fucking pagers to these people. I haven’t had a land line in any place I’ve lived for nine years. I’m pretty sure you can say the same for almost anybody under the age of 35. Even though home phone is quite quickly going the way of the dodo I still had to sell as many phone lines as internet accounts.
We were given a bunch of little tips and tricks to sell the phone lines. “Probing questions” to ask, “features and benefits” to talk about, advantages over cell phones etc. One advantage over cell phones we were told to push on the phone line was the E911 service. E911 is a feature for home phones that allows your name and address to automatically pop up on the 911 dispatcher’s computer when you call. Not all cell phones have that or may have a previous address. We were told to ask if the customer had a family and if so, they know how safety is a priority yada yada. I flat out refused to use that tactic. I didn’t sell a lot of phone lines.
The point here is that Best Buy is not the only company to use cross selling and overly personal questions as a “customer service” sales tactic and this trend isn’t going to stop anytime soon. This tactic apparently works to some extent, that’s why so many corporations are adopting it and if Best Buy’s sales keep dipping it’s only going to get more and more aggressive. In fact, if any Best Buy executive is reading this, here’s a sales script you can adopt in the near future(if you don’t go bankrupt) that I whipped up for you, free of charge.
BEST BUY: Welcome to Best Buy. Before you look at anything would you like to get a protection plan for it?
CUSTOMER: Actually, I just want to buy some batteries so if you could let me through.
BB: I’m sorry but company policy states that I can’t let you in the store unless you’re completely aware of everything we have to offer for you to give you the best experience! So would you like a protection plan for those batteries? We have three tiers of protection for every –
C: What? No. I don’t want a protection plan for my batteries. They’re batteries.
BB: I understand where you’re coming from but if you just want to pay 4.99 a month we could-
C: Please just let me in the store to buy some batteries.
BB: Okay, don’t want the Battery Protection Plan. It’s not for everybody. Now I’m guessing you’re not buying batteries for your battery collection so may I ask what you’re powering?
C: They’re for a remote control. Please let me through.
BB: Hey, a remote control! Would that be for your Toshiba HDTV or your Nintendo Wii?
C: How did you know I own those?
BB: Did a quick retinal scan, pulled up your purchase history. This helps us to better serve your needs as a customer.
C: I just… wait. What’s that?
BB: Oh, this? Just a baseball bat I had lying around. I like to keep it with me to show customers the full benefit of signing up for our service protection plans. To better help illustrate this I’ll use this Toshiba HDTV, much like the one you purchased from us. Now we all hope that nothing ever happens to our home electronics but if you signed up for our service protection plan you could fix your TV at no cost even if somebody took a baseball bat to it! Allow me to demonstrate.
C: You know what? I’m just going to back away slowly and then run to my car and buy some batteries at the gas station.
BB: Okay then. Thanks for choosing Best Buy! We know where you live!
