Best Buy — Local services in San Marcos

I am reviewing the Geek Squad “service”; not the products or any other area of Best Buy. I believe Best Buy has the perfect marketing opportunity to service the millions of customers who have money to spend and who are in need of someone to take time to do one on one training with older customers (over 50) who buy Best Buy products, who are intelligent and able to learn…Yearning to learn … the steps to take to accomplish a task on their devices-laptops, ipads, phones, etc. All we are missing is a How To Manual - which doesnt come with the products. I have the complete geek “elite” customer service package. Yet here is my experiences the last 3 visits to Geek Squad in store appts. I am only allowed 20 mins for an appt. I am greeted by a young person who 90.% of the time could have come right out of central casting from a SNL skit. They don’t make eye contact as they immediately TAKE your device and start logging in, asking you for the sign in info, as you stand there feeling like you are invisible. As you interrupt them to try to explain your problem or situation, you get a smirky look from them as if to say, “Yes, I know you are clueless in what you even want or need so I will tell you what you need.” In order to hurry up the process, you are not offered a seat, or a personal space in order to transact your business. You lean over the bar counter top and twist your body around as much as you can so you can see your screen which has been taken-over by the employee. Your geek will be wearing a headset that they speak to randomly and you often think they are addressing you when instead they are answering a question from a co-worker. God Bless the folks that have children who they can get instruction from at home one on one. I always take a notepad and tell the geek that I would like them to go step by step so I can write down the steps - goal being to be able to do these steps at home alone. I as them not to click on my computer and navigate with out first telling me the steps. Their reply: “Oh, this isn’t something you need to do.” Well, times up and I am asked if there is anything else? I say no, I guess not. I have been treated coldly, impersonally and I leave feeling that I had the opportunity to receive proper instructions but my needs and the geeks agenda are 2 opposite things entirely. I would gladly pay (even though I already pay the yearly fee) an additional fee for one on one instruction, in a properly set up area with partitioned desk space where a one on one devoted geek would tend to my needs for a pre paid fee. There is a goldmine out there for this service just waiting for you to arrange it for your customers. We are stuck in a time zone between the written word pre technology area and the global take over by technology, for which we are in a twilight zone scenario of being thrust into an impossible to overcome nightmare. Please rethink, reimagine and rescue all the population of millions that are in need of education but have no where to obtain it. I must give credit to one of your male employees who helped me several times. It was so refreshing and so different and appreciated - he made eye contact thru-out; smiled; seemed to WANT to help me; and acted like it was his mission to provide me the service...

I had a good initial experience at this Best Buy location when purchasing a gaming laptop. The staff were friendly, and the customer service during the sale was solid. Unfortunately, that’s where the positives stopped. Along with my laptop, the staff strongly recommended that I purchase a Microsoft 365 subscription. However, once I got home and set up my new device, I discovered that my existing Microsoft Office licenses had transferred over from my old laptop without issue—making the new subscription completely unnecessary. Since the Microsoft 365 subscription cost $97.41, I looked into Best Buy’s return policy, which clearly stated that it was a returnable item. I was well within the return period, so I returned to the store expecting a straightforward resolution. Instead, I was redirected from the customer service desk to a manager, who flat-out refused to process the return. Even when I pointed out the company’s official return policy, she dismissed it, saying my understanding was incorrect—without offering any clarity or alternative solutions. The only thing they offered was to cancel the subscription card, meaning I’d be left with nothing for the nearly $100 I had paid. That response felt not only unhelpful, but borderline disrespectful—especially considering I had just spent over $1,500 at this store just 13 days prior. After getting nowhere in person, I called Best Buy’s customer service line from the Best Buy parking lot, which connected me to a call center. At that point, I had very little hope of a resolution. But to my complete surprise, I was connected with a representative named Akita, and she was outstanding. She listened carefully, reviewed the return policy, and processed my refund with no pushback or confusion. The entire process took approximately 9 minutes. Akita was professional, knowledgeable, and everything the in-store team was not. I truly appreciate her help and wish the local store staff had shown even half her level of competence and customer care. It’s honestly disheartening that the store in my own country couldn’t assist me and that I had to rely on a call center halfway around the world to receive basic customer service. I expected better, especially after spending more than $1,500 at this location. Based on this experience, I would not recommend shopping at this store. You may be pressured into buying unnecessary items, and if something goes wrong, don’t expect the in-store team to stand by their own policies or do what’s right. Fortunately, customer service still...

Normally I'm not the type to do a bad review, I just cut my losses and move on to the next option, but my first experience ordering anything online with Best Buy will surely be my last. After thoroughly researching to find a good deal on a T.V stand for my new apartment I was thrilled to see that one of good quality and even better pricing was available. So as soon as I could I went in store to see if I could purchase this stand and was told that I could have it shipped to store for a sooner delivery. As luck would have it the supposed delivery date was the same day as my move in so I thought it would be perfect. So on the day I was supposed to pick it up I was told that they basically had no idea where the item I had ordered was (They tried using different semantics) As I tried to get more information as to how long I would have to wait, more details I was told that they had to send some sort of invoice to find out where the item was (That's on shipping I suppose but it seemed like the customer service rep did not really even care whether or not the darn thing came in.) I was also told that I would receive an update over the phone as to the location and status of my order. Days pass and still not word, so I had to go back in repeatedly to see what is going on, because getting information is like pulling teeth at this Best Buy, until I finally had enough and decided to ask for the manager. I was again told they would call me later that day. To his credit he called me earlier than expected with concrete information, so I thank him for that but it shouldn't have taken me going to a manager for ANYTHING to be done with my order. Since I got a direct answer I decided to try again and see the other options of T.V stands. Since things never seemed to get done without a manager present I asked to see the manager again who was unfortunately at a meeting. Again I was greeted with an apathetic attitude so I decided that it wasn't worth the headache to order anything else and asked for a refund. Long story short, it wasn't the fact that the item was no longer available, it 's the fact that I had to repeatedly hold their hand through the process because it seemed like they didn't care enough to do anything about it ,sans the manager. I would hope that my situation is an aberration, but as it stand my only experience ordering with best buy was less than one star, but I guess the helpful manager deserves...