@PaulChaney, better late than never It will be interesting to see what the next 2-3 years brings.

We’re dealing with an issue of congruity and misalignment of the online and offline sectors of the business to be sure. It’s like an engine where some of the pistons are firing, but others aren’t.

The brick-and-click companies that get it right will win in the marketplace no doubt.

Paul Chaney’s last blog post..BrightTALK’s Conversational Marketing Summit in full swing

Large companies and chains have a tough time these days. Low level employees are the first interaction customers have with a store, and not all of them have customer service as the most important part of their job. when dollars are scarce, customer service and doing the right thing are huge differentiation points in where to spend money. One angry cashier can sour a bunch of customers, not only for this sale, but for many more in the future; even when tempers are short during rush times, bad attitudes just breed more bad feelings.

I’ve had some great customer service experiences through Best Buy (we used their Magnolia Service to set up a home theater a while ago) and I have always liked them more than Circuit City, but I’ve never felt that their non-specialized sales people are very knowledgable or helpful- there aren’t very many computer geeks in the computer department, just sales people. I mis the few true computer geeks that used to live at CompUSA.

I know it’s tough to train employees in customer service and in products, but that up front investment might pay off in making the experience something people want to repeat, not avoid.

Good customer service has a long tail, but the long tail of bad customer service comes with a pretty serious bite. Glad they straightened it out for you.

I was at one store, plopped a bunch of items on the counter and the girl said “I don’t feel like ringing you up, can you take it over there.” No joke. I think I was in shock because I stupidly did it. Consequently, they are now out of business.

Your story makes me not want to start my holiday shopping…Glad you are all caught up!

@Ike, that’s the MAJOR problem. The online people are not working in conjunction with the offline people. The people at the store had no idea that corporate was online. If corporations are going to start use social media for customer service they need to make sure it trickles down. And really, Best Buy is a technology store of sorts, is it not?!

@LewisGreen, to your point of bad customer service, you are right. But here’s the thing…the guy that helped me seem to be listening, pulled everything I asked for (in retrospect, not *specifically* what I asked for), did exactly what I asked and was very nice─all aspects of great customer service. Where it went wrong perhaps is that this particular person might be used to people who don’t know what they want so they leave it to the “pros” at Best Buy to make a determination. The people go away unknowing and happy. Who knows. I am not justifying the lack of customer service and the fact that I was there three times. Obviously, he heard what I wanted, but didn’t listen.