Tikkabik

Unfortunately I learned pretty early on that faceless corporations give not one whit about you, personally, no matter what you want to do for them. Reciprocity, loyalty, courtesy... these things aren't part of the corporate vernacular. In fact, I learned that from dealing with a corporation with which Peter and I are intimately familiar...

I read your anger-venting piece and felt it was necessary to respond. I am a store manager dealing with a neighboring store closing (not yours). I must say, I feel for your situation as I have had to deal with many customers such as yourself. My corporate office (which, by the way, is no longer owned by Best Buy Enterprises), has actually been quite helpful and supportive to both myself and to the customers in question. I think the situation you find yourself in is unfortunate and your damning of the company is understood, albeit somewhat misplaced. When the lease runs out on a store, if it makes no financial sense to renew, they cannot do so and that decision can not be based on anything other than the survival of the company as a whole -- it is irregardless of how close other stores are. I think you hit the nail on the head though on how unfortunate the situation is. The economy is in trouble now and I think your situation shows how you are directly affected by such a downturn. I truly appreciate customers such as yourself who come in to our stores and know that we are not just mindless drones who sling keys on a register -- we are people who can and will talk to you and listen to your wants and needs. I pride myself in that.
Overall, I must applaud you and your loyalty even though you might feel it no longer matters. Believe me, it does to people like me.
I must, however, take exception to your one comment about the one store manager deciding to "take a day off." Whether you choose to believe it or not, my job is not easy. In fact it is damn hard. For all the wonderful and gracious customers such as yourself, there are also many who live to make our lives hell. We deal with far more than we are paid to do. I feel that my days off are EARNED and NO ONE --- and I mean NO ONE --- has the right to question why I am not in my store on a certain day. As customers, you provide us with the opportunity to serve you and we appreciate it but you must also provide us with the respect we deserve as fellow human beings. Thanks.

T.:

Thanks for your feedback, and I truly feel for you: Any service job that puts you right in the line of fire with customers all day long is a thankless task.

But you've missed the point -- it wasn't that the manager took a day off. It's that without him in the store, the problem wasn't able to get resolved. That's because either by accident or design, the system required him to be involved, and it shouldn't have. It was a simple transaction. It wasn't a bizarre ritual that should have required a manager to handle.

So it's ridiculous to me that the AM on duty that day couldn't have helped me, but what's even more ridiculous to me is that this problem ended up not getting resolved until a couple of weeks later.

Oh, they never did apply all of the Replay credits I earned on these transactions to my account, either.

And the final kick in the nuts? I had ordered the new Harry Potter book through these jokers too. The day before the book was to be released, I got a call from that same store to tell me that the book was in the following day.

My two choices were to either pick it up (requiring me to drive an hour and change, each way) or to cancel the order. Mailing it to me as they had with the other material was not an option.

Which option do you think I chose? That's right: Cancel the order. And I cancelled the other three items that I had special-ordered which either hadn't gotten released at that point or that I hadn't come in to pick up.

My wife ended up buying Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that night, at a midnight sale at Border's -- for the same price we would have paid for it through Suncoast.

Flargh,

Nice to see your reply to my initial posting. First, I have to defend my statement by saying that I did not miss your point -- in fact, you never elaborated on the issue in question to begin with. All I had to go on was what was printed already. But I wanted to touch base with you again because you had a situation that should be dealt with by the store manager -- even if you had to wait for his return from a day off -- but simply this particular manager did not do his job properly. While I don't have the particulars, this solution sounds so simple to me. Had you been my customer... I would have referred you to Replay for the issue of point credits. Had they been unable to do anything, I would have then called on your behalf (they are usually very good and I don't have to make too many calls). As for your pre-orders... I have had to deal with this as well... we don't have the capability to issue checks to customers in store and mailing cash is illegal but something can always be worked out if you troubleshoot the issue. Too bad this manager did not seem to want to do that.
As I said, I did not miss your point at all -- like it or not -- store managers in all retail establishments represent the true go-betweens -- AM's and others train on how to do it eventually. It all depends on how hard the manager is willing to work -- but my point was simply, please don't stereotype us all because we are managers -- especially in the same company.
I truly do appreciate your predicament... I have had similar problems in the past and I've had to jump through hoops with different retailers as a consumer. With the situation I am in now... I have seen it from both perspectives now.
I really appreciate your forum here to discuss this and to find out from you, a customer, what you are experiencing. I hope that all of your problems have been taken care of and, if not, maybe post your e-mail address and I can help you in some way.
Thanks again.

T.