Best Buy — Local services in Mehlville

My son and I went to Best Buy to purchase speakers for his new computer. We were able to find exactly what my son wanted quickly and went straight to the front to pay for the item. There was only one cashier who was busy helping someone with a return, which was odd as the returns are usually at the service desk, I thought. So, since this guy was returning a TV, they had to open the box and check the TV and all of the components in the box. We waited over 15 minutes while this return took place, and they still were not done. The same employee/greeter was standing there the entire time and never requested back-up for the cashier. I approached her and asked if there was another place we could pay for the one item we were purchasing. She sent us to the service desk. The guy at the service desk (again only one person) was helping another person with a return. So, we had to wait there also. We waited again for maybe 5 minutes and got up to the counter and the guy says "you need to check out over there" and I explained we were sent over here. I asked "can we please just pay for this item?" and he responds by saying "after I take an item to a car outside". At this point, I said forget it and walked away. We had one item...one. And the transaction was simple...not a return. The greeter/employee watched this happen and still did nothing. I told her as I was walking out that he would not ring in our transaction. Again, she did nothing. If you are not going to provide enough staff to ring in one item and accept payment, then you have some serious issues. And, you really need to decide where returns happen. The front cashiers clearly do not have the time or resources to do so. No greeter/employee is necessary if they aren't going to provide some type of service or assistance when the cashier is clearly in need of some help. Simple transactions are just that...this is how you are making money. When returns take priority, you lose money. And, you definitely lose customers when there is no customer service. I tried to call the manager of the store and the phone number goes to a call center. No one even answered and I waited for 11 minutes on hold. I tried calling back and same experience. This is a local number but apparently it is transferred to a call center somewhere else. So, you cannot talk with a manager as these things take place, which is even more of a disregard for customers and what they are experiencing. A simple transaction turned into a situation just because of the lack of customer service and disregard for a customer wanting to make a purchase. I highly recommend avoiding this store as they cannot even accept money for a purchase and prefer to do returns with the two people they have working...

On Sunday, August 22, 2021, my niece and I visited your South County Store in Saint Louis Missouri. We arrived at the store at approximately 2:45 pm and approached the Geek Squad center. We waited for about 15 minutes and was assisted by Connor.

Connor was great to work with and very knowledgeable. He stated that they were not able to repair my niece’s phone, therefore, Best Buy/ Geek Squad will have to issue a new phone. A supervisor (I cannot remember her name) assisted Connor with this process. She was pleasant as well.

We received the gift card and went to the mobile center. Dino, the mobile representative assisted us with the purchase and gave us the total for the new phone and the game we purchased. I questioned the total and he informed us that it was due to taxes and fees for the new phone. I informed him that we were exchanging the phone due to Geek Squad. Dino was confused and asked a manager for assistance.

Chris came to assist and seemed a little annoyed. Seemed to me that his mind was already made up (I don’t know why). I explained the situation, and he sarcastically stated that we are paying the taxes and fees because “we bought a new phone”. I explained that it was not right, I have done this before, and never had to pay taxes and fees. We went back and forth with this screaming match. I’m sorry that Dino, my niece, and your other customers had to experience this.

I asked for the manager, he stated that he was “the manager”. Come to find out he wasn’t the store manager. I asked for his name and Dino’s name. He gave me his name and stated that it was inappropriate for me to ask for his associates name, because he “handled” the situation and his associate had nothing to do with ithis. I informed him that I wanted to include it in my timeline of events. Plus, I should be able to know the name of the person that’s assisting me. That’s Customer Service 101.

I left the store to call customer service, Ivy, the geek squad phone agent, informed me of my options. I went back into the store, Connor and the original supervisor that assisted him, helped resolve my issue. They also apologized for what had happened.

Connor, the original supervisor, and Dino are great representatives for Best Buy. Chris needs more training on Customer Service, ethics (for being misleading about his role), and Emotional Intelligence. All of this could have been resolved if he would have listened to my concern, asked the right questions, been willing to assist, and was willing to learn. Obviously, he was not an expert in this area and the experts were...

On 11/22/2023 my girlfriend and her mother went into this location to buy a TV I had recommended to them. They ended up getting harassed by LG vendors to buy their TVs and became so annoyed they left. I attempted to call ahead to make sure they had the Samsung 75" tv SKU 6537370 available for purchase and that it was indeed in stock and can be physically accounted for. Instead, I'm connected to some customer service hub speaking to someone on the other side of the world who won't let me talk to anyone at the South County store to verify the product is there unless I purchase it first. I ended up hanging up that call out of frustration and went into the store with my girlfriend and her mother. They had only one gentleman (long hair down to ears, wearing glasses and a hoodie) working back in the home theater department so we had to wait a little bit. But when he became availabe, I gave him the SKU number and he rang it up. After completing the transaction, he didn't give us the receipt, instead asking us to pull our vehicle up to the front of the store and that he would bring the tv out and load it for us. We went outside and pulled the vehicle up, The home theater employee, along with one other employee, came out with a tv on a cart. I opened the rear trunk door of the vehicle and then went to the rear passenger door to lower the seats so the tv could be loaded. I didn't get a good look at the box and had assumed they got the right one. That was my mistake.. After they loaded the tv, my girlfriend and her mother went home to start prepping Thanksgiving. Around 9:30pm they got some time to try and set up the TV, only to find out they got the 65" Samsung TV SKU 6537375 priced at $749.99 instead of the 75" Samsung TV SKU 6537370 that they paid $999.99 for. I immediately call the store number only to get connected to the customer service center once more. I was on hold for about 29 minutes only to be hung up on at 10PM when the store closed. All I wanted to do was contact the manager to notify them of the mistake so I could easily get the TV exchanged for the correct one. It's absolutely unprofessional and ridiculous that I can't call the store directly and get effective communication for something so simple to fix. Instead, I got to deal with the runarounds and now I won't be able to do anything until Black Friday when the store is going to be chaos with all the shoppers and who knows how long of a hold time I'll get to wait through when I call "the store"...