Complaint Review: Best Buy - North Canton Ohio

First off let me say this, you are way wrong and in fact you could not be more wrong. I used to be a personal shopping assistant for this company and my job was one thing. To cater my services to women in order to help make them feel more comfortable with coming into Best Buy by offering them what they referred to as a "Smart Friend". I had a client list of 300 customers who regularly used me and 270 of them were women. Why was this my job, because studies have shown most women do not feel comfortable talking to a line level sales associate because they feel like they may not get all the information they need or people the associates talk way over there head. My job was to give an accurate description but without giving a pixel feature on the TV. Most line level associates get very excited about the stuff they are selling and not everyone (including men) know what a megabyte, pixel or CPU is. IT was also my job to make my customers feel welcomed and cared for a job I was very good at. Best Buy is trying to cater to their female clients more than the males and why would that be? Most men have a signifigant other, and lets face it guys they make the decsions 88% of the time and if we do not involve the other half its a missed sale. Thirdly I am tired of this, "I am a woman in a electronics store and am not respected for that!" Get over it and one other thing, if you have ever worked in an installation bay trust me you may feel the same way those guys do they work countless hours by themselves where one little mistake will cost them their job. I agree they should have apologized and you should have asked for a Manager. When I would run MOD shifts I had customers who would grab me for the stupidest things, "I bought this TV 8 months ago its not working I want a refund I know you have a 30 day policy but I spent 400 dollars!" (Which by the way, buy the Service Plan unless you want to deal with the manufacturer.) Yours would have been something I could have taken care of.

Stacy, there are bad employees everywhere but I don't think that the problem was with Best Buy this time. I am a chick and have shopped and had car stereos installed and my computer updated at this very same Best Buy ever since they were across the street from Belden Village and have never, ever had a problem getting good service. From the tone of your letter the problem just may be with you and whatever insecurities that you have about your gender. Here's a tip. Next time you think someone is rude to you, stand up for yourself and then ask to speak with a manager. Don't play the victim card though, that is old.

To the first reply, I am sure glad that Best Buy as a corporation does not feel this way. I do not judge the whole store by a few people, only if the store ALLOWS people to continue to treat people this way does it raise a brow. To be honest I kind of have to shop here once I find out that Sears in Belden Village only has a limited supply of certain items or maybe other stores nearby don't carry the item I want. Some people have no choice but to shop here in a town where other stores carry much less. To the second reply, when I used the 'B' word I was using sarcasm and parody, one of the advantages of signing up for AP Eglish class, it stays with you for life! By the way, no one admits to being a bigot, they just lie about it and do it stealthy. All researchers agree that human communication is 80% physical and not so much verbal. If a chubby person walks into a room in a tight outfit with the seams ripping apart and everyone gives that person a dirty look, we all know that the room does not like that person without anyone having to say a word. Disapproval and rejection have nothing to do with a person openly admitting it, it has to do with what they convey with their bodies. God made us human with emotions for a reason or he wouldn't have given it to us. Gone are the days where people have to prove that someone is discrimminating with actual verbal phrases. Most disrimmination is sneaky and silent. Human emotion is the greatest indicatator of man's intent. If something can be felt, then it can be communicated, if something can be communicated, then it can be interpreted, if something can be interpreted, then in can be measured, if it can be measured, then it can be quantified, and if something can be quantified, then it can be calculated, and if something can be calculated, then it can be proven. Because as we all know, calculations are mathematical and math is not subjective. Math is solid and provable. Due to the aforesaid qualifications, my case is provable and set in stone. By the way, I never said I exprected work on my car that day, if you would read what I actually wrote, it said I expected to get SCHEDULED for the next open time slot, and that is a mandate at any business. I read afterwards, I think it was in 2005 there was a national civil complaint that Best Buy didn't hire women, the elderly and some other groups and I think they were sued. Then lo and behold Best Buy rushed and hired a bunch of women last year when I had never seen many, if any women in the Best Buys I have went to. People need to realize that they cannot get away with treating people unequally.

While I am not saying they did not lose your appointment, I think your bounds on their view of women may be misguided. YOU added in the word "bi**h" after he said Ma'am., and YOU added in yet another editiorial comment about "hope your gone by then". You dont know he was thinking that. I'm betting, he went back and asked the installation manager, saying something along the lines of, apparantly we lost this womans appointment; she is here now. What do we do, and the manager probably said "well, we will get her in as quick as possible, tell her it will be an hour"; maybe that's the case. I'm not saying its right that they forgot or didnt appologize, but your women bashing views are unfounded. And it is true, that you can't just drive up and expect them to start working on it, and yes, a brochure may have mentioned prices for certain things, but, they would have to look at see what if any of those specific things you needed.

While I am not saying they did not lose your appointment, I think your bounds on their view of women may be misguided. YOU added in the word "bi**h" after he said Ma'am., and YOU added in yet another editiorial comment about "hope your gone by then". You dont know he was thinking that. I'm betting, he went back and asked the installation manager, saying something along the lines of, apparantly we lost this womans appointment; she is here now. What do we do, and the manager probably said "well, we will get her in as quick as possible, tell her it will be an hour"; maybe that's the case. I'm not saying its right that they forgot or didnt appologize, but your women bashing views are unfounded. And it is true, that you can't just drive up and expect them to start working on it, and yes, a brochure may have mentioned prices for certain things, but, they would have to look at see what if any of those specific things you needed.

While I am not saying they did not lose your appointment, I think your bounds on their view of women may be misguided. YOU added in the word "bi**h" after he said Ma'am., and YOU added in yet another editiorial comment about "hope your gone by then". You dont know he was thinking that. I'm betting, he went back and asked the installation manager, saying something along the lines of, apparantly we lost this womans appointment; she is here now. What do we do, and the manager probably said "well, we will get her in as quick as possible, tell her it will be an hour"; maybe that's the case. I'm not saying its right that they forgot or didnt appologize, but your women bashing views are unfounded. And it is true, that you can't just drive up and expect them to start working on it, and yes, a brochure may have mentioned prices for certain things, but, they would have to look at see what if any of those specific things you needed.

First off i want to start with a very big "I am sorry". While yes, I don't work for that Best Buy locale, I am an employee of the company. Best Buy is not a store that is just meant for "the guys", and if that is how you felt I am sorry. I can personally tell you (because I have spent many days back there) that if you were in my locale, you would NOT get treated that way. Now, I can't say that my store is perfect, because we do have our problems, but in the case of your friend; if that was my store and we had screwed up the scheduald time we would make the effort to get the install done as quickly as possible. That is what the other store should have done; but unfortunantly, they did not. Best Buy is so dedicated to the entire family experience, that many stores across the nation have personal shopping assistants to help those with children or the elderly find the products they need. I hope that this one experience won't change your mind about all Best Buy Stores (and if it does it is definentially understandable) but hopefully you will continue to be a customer at that location. I want to first thank you for your continued patronage of our stores (before this incident), and again want to extend an appology to you for you and your friend's experience at that particular Best Buy