Best Buy Adding Game Staff

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Noooooooo! Please Best Buy, don't add more annoying people to your roster! There is nothing worse than being asked repeatedly if "there's anything I can help you with" when you know for a fact...this person is incapable of helping you.

This will apparently offer customers the same expertise on games that they can get about the other products they sell, as Best Buy describes the plan to add "dedicated, informed, and engaged employees focused only on gaming."
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This is a true story, that just happened to me four days ago at Best Buy. I found myself in Best Buy getting a few DVDs. The sales person asks me "is there anything I can help you find?" I tell him I am just browsing new DVDs but, if he they had any socket 1155 motherboards, I could use one but it needs to be a B3 revision. He comes back to me 5 minutes later and...I swear to god...he says "we do have one Intel 1155 mainboard but you are out of luck on the vitamins." :eek:
 
I may have to start carrying a sign around that says, "I DON'T NEED ANY HELP". My fiance and I have been pretty irritated the last couple of visits with the amount of badgering. I think we counted about 8 times in one visit. Or maybe I need to pull out an air horn and announce it to the entire store after being asked 3 times: "YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE. I DO NOT NEED MY HAND HELD OR YOUR UNEDUCATED HELP OR OPINIONS. HAVE A NICE DAY".
 
And this is one major reason I will never shop at best buy again!

Also here are more reasons why I will never shop best buy again.


Idiots, Incapable, Ignorant, Ignoramus, Imbecile, feeble-minded, moronic, deranged, dim-witted.


I know there is more words of negativity towards that shit hole. :D
 
Wait... motherboards need vitamins??!?! I knew I was missing something...
 
You've got to be kidding me. Best Buy's margins are going down, they're starting to struggle, and they want to...add staff? Within a year or two we'll be at the point where the average customer can buy an average computer and it will run everything they want, albeit at lower quality settings. Heck, some would argue we're already there, but I don't have quite that much faith in the current level of integrated graphics.

Long story short: adding staff who will be obsolete as the GPU is moved onto the CPU when you're already struggling doesn't make sense to me.
 
Good Part: Best Buy giving you customer service (or pretense of)
Bad News: Said customer service is dumb as a brick.
 
I make a game out of being asked for help. When I go into Best Buy (which is a very rare occasion) I count how many times I'm asked for help. Its their job, no reason to get mad at them for it. Though its rather rare to find one around when I actually do want to ask them to find something. I know for a fact that at least one Best Buy has at least one intelligent and knowledgeable employee as one of them is in my networking classes, so at least we can't say every one of them are poorly informed.
 
Gah! No wonder my computer has been getting sluggish lately. It just doesn't have the perkiness that it once did. Why stop at B3? I should start feeding my motherboard multi-vitamin pills on a daily basis. Maybe some coffee, too? Mountain Dew? Would my computer reveal my passwords if someone started giving it alchohol? Is this something I should be concerned about? My whole understanding of computers has changed...
 
I only go there if I find something there is the lowest price, kinda rare when that happens tho.
 
The only way to avoid Best Buy employees bothering you is to make yourself look like someone who isn't going to spend any money there. For example, you can make yourself look like a homeless person: put on a garbage bag poncho over your clothes, smear some grime onto your face, don't shower for a few days prior to your visit to get that authentic smell, etc.
 
Did you really think some teenage kid who probably is making close to minimum wage is even going to know the answer to that question.... I worked in retail before and met people (that I was genuinely trying to help) try to deliberately stump me on various random questions to inflate their own ego.. Not saying this was the case, but this bring up those dark retail days.

The answer you got was pretty funny though.
 
I have a friend who works at Best Buy. And, from what he tells me, the training is practically non-existent.

So, the only way that the staff will know anything is if they already know about it and are interested in it. Otherwise, you end up with vitamin guy, or the guy who I asked about IPS panels that showed me some keyboards.

So, it's not really the staff's fault per se. You're going to get the same level of employee that you'll get anywhere else that pays close to minimum wage, except at Best Buy no one offers them the training necessary to work in a rather technical retail situation.

I used to go to Best Buy... but now, it's a waste of my time. Everything I find there is cheaper somewhere else, and their selection is too... uh... entry level I guess. They're not aiming for people that want good stuff. Their market is the people that just know they need a computer, and they need it to have such and such screen size.
 
i went to best buy the other day to pick up a new keyboard and i was ther for about 20 mim and if i didn't get asked 10 times if i needed help, and last year my dad wanted a new tv so i went whit him he wanted a plasma and i said yea this 42in s1 will do you and he goes gets teh sale guy i walk away come back 5 mim later and teh guy trying to talk him in to a 3d lcd because its way better and brighter and 3d is the new thing i say talk the plasma so then the guy trys to sell my dad a hdmi cable that can do 240hz for like $70 and when i said i got a $10 one at home to use the guy goes on and on how a old hdmi cable wont work at all whit the 600hz subfeild drive and all this bs, and on then some other guy came around who said all 1080P tv are the same and that contrast only maters if you use none hd feeds to the tv i faced palmed when the guy said that
 
But their range of PC games suck, from one side of a shelving system to hardly anything, I buy my games primarly through Amazon as a result.
 
On the rare occasions I make it to BB the only help I need from the employees is "Where is item X," because I already know what I am after and I visit the store so infrequently that I don't immediately know where it is.

I can't see who would need dedicated gaming advice though. Moms' maybe? Buying presents for the wee ones?

Better train the employees you have BB, don't add more.
 
I believe the pattern will remain the same.

"Can I help you find something?"
"No, just browsing."

Phenomenal cosmic power.
 
I was just at a CompUSA last night looking for one of those old and rare AMD AD5000ODJ22GI cpus that can maybe unlock to a quad if you are lucky. It said online the store had limited stock.

Anyway, they didn't have any, it was a stock glitch or something.
A guy in the back who should know something about technical details was trying to be helpful and asked me what chipset I had on my motherboard. I lied and said I couldn't remember if it was a 690G or a 740G, but it was an AMD. ( I didn't want to go into details on why I wanted that cpu. )

He then tried to inform me how that wasn't the chipset. According to him AM2 or AM3 would be the chipset.

How do you guys handle total incompetence like that? I let it go. It's not my job to teach people in stores things, but if nobody lets them in on their incompetence they will never learn and will mislead countless non-technical people who really need help.
 
You guys are seriously complaining about them asking you if they can help you? Stop being pussies. Yes, they aren't as technically informed as you. Yes, they will try to sell you overpriced cables. But seriously, being asked if you need help is like, customer service 101. It would be one thing if they kept pestering you after you say "nope, just looking." But I've never once had a BB employee bother me after I say I don't need help. If you are asking for specific revisions of a motherboard at BB, YOU are the one doing it wrong.

There are plenty of things to complain about at BB, but the one thing they do GREAT is making sure every customer is asked if they need help. Most stores have no employees and finding stuff is impossible. At BB, they are awesome at trying to find what you need. It's one of the few things that is actually done well there.
 
I've picked up plenty of Blu-rays for 10 bucks there. But that's about all I ever buy from them.

*goes to checkout*

"Do you have a reward zone card?"
Nope
"Like to sign up for one?"
No thanks
"Will this be on your Best Buy credit card?"
No.
"Like to sign up for one?"
No.
Would you like an extended warranty on that can of air?
No thanks.
"Would you like a free subscription to Sports Illustrated or Entertainment Weekly?"
No.
 
pgaster said:
I was just at a CompUSA last night looking for one of those old and rare AMD AD5000ODJ22GI cpus that can maybe unlock to a quad if you are lucky. It said online the store had limited stock.

Anyway, they didn't have any, it was a stock glitch or something.
A guy in the back who should know something about technical details was trying to be helpful and asked me what chipset I had on my motherboard. I lied and said I couldn't remember if it was a 690G or a 740G, but it was an AMD. ( I didn't want to go into details on why I wanted that cpu. )

He then tried to inform me how that wasn't the chipset. According to him AM2 or AM3 would be the chipset.

How do you guys handle total incompetence like that? I let it go. It's not my job to teach people in stores things, but if nobody lets them in on their incompetence they will never learn and will mislead countless non-technical people who really need help.
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I simply don't ask questions that require technical knowledge. I understand that the time and cost involved to train every single floor employee would be insane and I don't expect them to know everything. What I expect employees to know is where stuff is and whether or not they carry something. These stores aren't really meant for people like the users of this forum. If people are willfully ignorant about such things, not really my problem. The customers shopping there should do their research before buying anything anyway.
 
What I hate about BB is that I'll get accosted in the DVD's or CD's section ("Can I help you find something?") when everything is pretty clearly grouped by genre/alphabet...but if you want to get a larger item like a TV, stereo receiver, etc. you practically have to hunt someone down.
Ditto for getting games out of those locked cases, or even worse when they have them hidden by the checkout.

I miss the Circuit City service in that regard. They got commission, so of course they didn't care about a $5 CD or $15 movie. Plus, any idiot can find those if they're on the shelf. If you wanted a TV or some stereo equipment you'd have the whole store in your hands...and you could even bargain the final price with them so they could get their commission on the warranty.
 
Every time threads like this are started, they infuriate me. I worked at a Circuit City for two years in high school (2005-2007).

There's really a bare minimum of training for it. I had about four hours of sitting in front of slide shows that gave a vague explanation of every product in the store. They throw you out on the sales floor, and you just have to learn by asking the more experienced salesmen and by figuring out things on your own. Any of the details about the more technical stuff, either you learned on your own time, or you didn't know. There was no provision to get in-depth training.

The sales people exist to help the dumbest 80% of customers. People who know absolutely nothing about what they're buying. They're not some highly-paid, highly-trained elite force of overclockers and IT professionals who can tell you which stepping of an i7-920 overclocks better.

It's also their job to bother you. They have their 'section' of aisles, and if a customer walks in there, they are supposed to immediately approach them and ask for help. If you're wandering around the store, you'll probably get asked by every sales person that you walk past. It's their job to, and if the floor manager sees them let a customer walk by without being greeted, they can get reprimanded. They would rather bother you than have their boss bother them.

While it annoys me as much as the next guy, it's petty and stupid to blame the minimum wage kid who doesn't know anything. He's just trying to make an honest buck in a retail system that focuses on bothering customers and selling extended warranties and overpriced accessories. Bitching at him won't get you anywhere. Those decisions are made at a much higher level of management, and chances are, the sales people dislike the aggressive tactics they're forced to use as much as you do. One of the worst things about that job was the arrogant people I was dealing with who didn't need my help, but wanted to annoy me anyway. A few of you sound like you were that guy. Asking for a very specific product that you know we don't carry, or asking detailed questions about products that you already know the answer to. Making a minimum wage high school kid feel like an idiot because the four hour online training he took (which covered everything in the store, only a half hour was dedicated to computers and it was like "herp derp this is what RAM is") didn't explain the difference between a B2 stepping and a B3 stepping is pretty pathetic.
 
This is a true story, it just happened to me four days ago at Best Buy. I found myself in Best Buy getting a few DVDs. The sales person asks me "is there anything I can help you find?" I tell him I am just browsing new DVDs but, if he they had any socket 1155 motherboards, I could use one but it needs to be a B3 revision. He comes back to me 5 minutes later and...I swear to god...he says "we do have one Intel 1155 mainboard but you are out of luck on the vitamins."
Click to expand...

along the same line...olde dude walks into a music shoppe & asks the sweet young thing behind the counter if they have any Ten Years After, to which she replies, "Ten years after what?" :p
 
Remember in the 90s when you could buy word processors? Not software, the machines that were a typewriter/computer hybrid? Well, I overheard a Dixons (UK consumer electronics and appliance store) employee tell a couple who were browsing the word processor section that "this one is better because it is A S C Two compatible".
 
I absolutely hated pushing extended warranties because I knew they were a rip-off, and I ended up working in the warehouse (despite knowing more about the stuff than most of the sales people) so that I wouldn't have to use aggressive sales tactics. I had a lot of fun in warehouse, and as a bonus I'd sometimes get tipped. That's the other thing. Your warehouse guy does not have to spend fifteen minutes wedging a 46" TV into the back seat of your Honda Civic. All he has to do is hand you the box in front of the building. Be nice, and if you're going to make a large purchase, borrow a friend's larger car. Most subcompacts will not fit a giant TV in them, and it's a waste of time when you show up with one and get all "ummm what do you mean it wont fit?"

As for dedicated game staff, I think that's a good idea. Lots of the people who come in to buy game consoles are parents of teenage kids. They don't know the first thing about them. I did some work there (I staffed the PS3 midnight launch and the Wii launch), and you'd get so many people who didn't realize that it only comes with one controller so if you have two kids, you need to buy an extra controller, or didn't realize that you needed to buy games for it, or didn't know how to hook it up to their TV. Since the console gaming audience is younger, in my experience more consoles were bought by middle aged people for children and teens than were bought by young adults for themselves. Parents want to make sure that Santa brings the kids their Xbox, but also brings each kid his/her own controller, and brings them a fun game to play on it, and that mommy and daddy have the right cables to hook it up to the TV.
 
nalc said:
The sales people exist to help the dumbest 80% of customers. People who know absolutely nothing about what they're buying. They're not some highly-paid, highly-trained elite force of overclockers and IT professionals who can tell you which stepping of an i7-920 overclocks better.
Click to expand...

Where employees get the short end of the stick is that Best Buy makes employees ask about extended warranties, reward zone cards and bug people on the floor. Making matters worse, Best Buy actually says its staff are trained experts in its advertisments / commercials.

It's a "no win" situation for the employee but, for the most part, people know it isn't your fault.
 
I went to the Richfield, MN store earlier this week (the closest store to the company's HQ), and I asked a guy if they had any IPS monitors. He had absolutely no idea what I was talking about so I just walked away.
 
Domingo said:
What I hate about BB is that I'll get accosted in the DVD's or CD's section ("Can I help you find something?") when everything is pretty clearly grouped by genre/alphabet...but if you want to get a larger item like a TV, stereo receiver, etc. you practically have to hunt someone down.
Ditto for getting games out of those locked cases, or even worse when they have them hidden by the checkout.

I miss the Circuit City service in that regard. They got commission, so of course they didn't care about a $5 CD or $15 movie. Plus, any idiot can find those if they're on the shelf. If you wanted a TV or some stereo equipment you'd have the whole store in your hands...and you could even bargain the final price with them so they could get their commission on the warranty.
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Ya, no kidding. I had to hunt ppl down when I bought a car stereo, external hdd, monitor, tv, and SSD. All on seperate occassions. When I'm just looking around, I get bothered so much. Like I was the only customer in the store or something.

Not to mention, they try to explain that there are other products. Mother fucker, I already picked out wtf I wanted. Don't try to point me at some other piece of crap. Course they give the completely wrong information too. Like them trying to explain the difference between an LCD and LED LCD. They gave me details for an OLED, saying that's what the LED LCD was.
 
I think some of you all skipped the article. While all the stories are amusing, the point of all this is to create a game counter in the store that is focused on console gaming. They are looking to make it a one stop for recommendations, trade-ins, pre-orders, DLC, etc. I think they actually have a chance at having informed employees when it comes to console gaming, the learning curve isn't too steep (assuming there is one). They are trying to get market share from Gamestop)

Now this will turn into an anti-Best Buy and anti-Gamestop thread.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
Steve said:
Where employees get the short end of the stick is that Best Buy makes employees ask about extended warranties, reward zone cards and bug people on the floor. Making matters worse, Best Buy actually says its staff are trained experts in its advertisments / commercials.

It's a "no win" situation for the employee but, for the most part, people know it isn't your fault.
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There's two kinds of employees at these stores - those who drink the company kool-aid and are convinced that yes, you really do need a $99 "new computer setup" package, and those who know it's bullshit but sell it anyway because they need good numbers so that they can get paid. Sadly, the former is usually the people who are promoted to managers, so it keeps going. The 'attachments' are what makes the store money, so they'll have you telling customers that the $99 6-foot Monster HDMI cable works much better than the $69 6-foot Belkin HDMI cable, when in reality neither cable is any better than a $2 6-foot Monoprice HDMI cable, and both cables carry more profit for the store than the $2000 TV you just sold. It sucks, but you make do, especially if you're in high school, where it is one of the better jobs you can get with no experience.
 
I use to like Best Buy when they first came out. I could go there and buy computer parts such as memory, hard drives, and cables for a competitive price. The sales staff didn't hound you but were available when you ask. Now its a completely different store and its all about greed instead of service. Computer parts are overpriced, or nonexistant, and outdated. They harass and try to up sell you an extended warranty, a geek squad installation, and a $80 dollar cable. Then they stare at you like your going to steal something. I know its not the employees fault, but management needs to revert back to the old ways.
 
JR-Orion said:
I've picked up plenty of Blu-rays for 10 bucks there. But that's about all I ever buy from them.

*goes to checkout*

"Do you have a reward zone card?"
Nope
"Like to sign up for one?"
No thanks
"Will this be on your Best Buy credit card?"
No.
"Like to sign up for one?"
No.
Would you like an extended warranty on that can of air?
No thanks.
"Would you like a free subscription to Sports Illustrated or Entertainment Weekly?"
No.
Click to expand...

Haha, so true. But at the same time I don't blame them. I've worked for best buy and I know that they would most likely be fired if they don't offer that crap. Also keep in mind that they die a little bit inside every time that they offer that crap.
 
This magnetically-shielded optical cable helps prevents picture distortion in case a black hole makes a near pass with your living room.
 
When I grow up, I want to get a PhD in Consumer Computer Sales and work at Best Buy for a dollar over minimum wage!!!!! What's dumber than a Best Buy employee? The customer complaining about the employee's lack of knowledge!
 
Stone Cold said:
When I grow up, I want to get a PhD in Consumer Computer Sales and work at Best Buy for a dollar over minimum wage!!!!! What's dumber than a Best Buy employee? The customer complaining about the employee's lack of knowledge!
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You must work at Best Buy.

(kidding) :p
 
Yeah this is pretty sad. I do sometimes pull the same kind of stuff Steve did though and am like "....ok, you want to help me with something? Tell me more about....this *grabs a slingbox* " . Now Steve threw a slightly harder one at the guy, even if someone knew their stuff, they can be excused if they havent kept up with certain motherboard revisions, what with all the pins they have nowadays.

But I grabbed a regular product the store carries, and on separate occasions I had them crumple before me trying to explain how a slingbox works, to the point where I got them to admit they knew nothing, and I couldnt and shouldnt very well buy a product if they cannot be sure it will serve my needs and explain to me properly. It is fun to have that moment where I can make them clearly regret thinking they could actually help inform me about one of their own products...

At this same time a lot of us, especially us really complaining, probably would do well in such a game expert position, since we actually know our stuff in that regard.....if I ever end up getting canned from my current well paying job and need to take something on the fly, I can't imagine it would be so terrible, and at least I'd know what I'm talking about. The question then becomes where is the better place to work, Gamestop or Best Buy :p ?
 
Cruiza said:
You must work at Best Buy.

(kidding) :p
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No, WalMart offered me more money to work in their electronics department. I got my PhD in Consumer Computer Sales, but the Walmart management doesn't allow me to endlessly ask people "Can I help you..." It makes all my years and years of formal education seem wasted. If only someone could ask me "Do you have any socket 1155 motherboards, I could use one but it needs to be a B3 revision?" I could say "No, we don't carry internal components. And, that's a good thing for you because the B3 revision has a buggy Column Address Strobe. The voltage overshoots on the rising edge of the strobe because of improperly doped germanium diodes used to buffer the output signal, in the integrated memory controller. It's so buggy that you'd get memory errors if you tried over-clocking. But, if you want some Niacin, that's in the front, near the Pharmacy."
 
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