Best Buy - Worst Buy

Customer service. I'm big on customer service and expect good customer service at the places I choose to shop. I won't be shopping at Best Buy anymore.

Well... I didn't get the best customer service today at Best Buy in Marin City. I bought a headset there about a month ago. The package the headset came in was one of those impossible to open sealed plastic things. By the time I got the package open there wasn't actually much package left so I threw the package out. A few days later I finally got around to plugging in my headset and guess what? It didn't work. Convinced I was the problem and not the headset I kept trying different holes in the back of my computer. Still convinced I must be the problem I waited thinking it must be the Webinar conference room I'm using. Finally, I came to accept that my headset was just not going to work. My $30.00 headset was useless.

The other day while cleaning my desk I picked up the headset and thought about throwing it out. When suddenly I noticed the wire was broken.

So... I decided to head off to Best Buy today and tell them my discovery. I was hoping they would let me exchange it but knew they might not since I no longer had the package (although I did still have the receipt). I explained that from day one it never worked and showed her where the wire was broken. She said um I don't think we can exchange this and she went and got her manager. He took one look and said we can't exchange this it looks like you cut it. I explained how it has never worked since the day I took it out of the package and he said well I don't know what you did but we aren't exchanging this. I don't remember what else he said, it's not important but I went away with the feeling that he and the woman thought I was lying. They did not apologize just accused me of breaking it and acted annoyed with me for bothering them.

I wasn't expecting to be able to exchange my headset. I was hoping but not expecting. Being able to exchange my headset would have far exceeded good customer service (like Nordstrom's and Costco have been known to do). I was expecting some respect not to be treated like a liar. An exchange would have been great! Even a discount would have been great! An apology would have been good customer service. An accusation is just bad customer service.

I feel the need to point out a moral to my story here so it's not just a post of me whining about my bad customer service at Best Buy.


Here goes...
When a client calls to complain about a job you have done for them what do you do? Do you take ownership or do you make excuses? Do you blame them? Do you take the time to really listen to them and try to find out a way to make them satisfied?