It is politically correct, it seems, to diss Best Buy. This review will be politically incorrect since I'll round up to five stars for my three experiences with Bend's Best Buy over the last six years. Noting the fifth star is due to the great service received from professional and charming Matt in the PC sales department this past weekend.
My husband and I popped into Best Buy to look at laptops a couple of days ago. My desktop had been held hostage by ransomware virus and it was in sick bay at another retailer's tech department. (Side note: There will be a review shortly about this to be for now nameless other retailer with a warning if you are dumb enough, as was I, to do business with them.)
Everything being connected to everything else, it was my need to use my hubby's laptop while my desktop was being tuned up that made me say to him, insist really, that he needed an updated machine. I'll be forced to use his on a few upcoming extended travel adventures and I'm protecting my interests.
So in we went to Best Buy just to kick tires at what may be Bend's most robust inventory of personal technology items. We had looked elsewhere and hubby is very clear about what his requirements are and are not as well as what price he is willing to pay.
It is not unlike being in a car lot to be at Best Buy for how one is pounced on with sales folk asking how they can help you. That's one view of it. Here's another. It is not unlike Nordstrom's to be at Best Buy with sales folk wanting to be sure you have the assistance you need.
I hate shopping for computers only slightly less than I hate shopping for clothes, so I appreciate the help Best Buy sales folks offer and consider the Nordstrom analogy the better one. Particularly so for Matt who knew his stuff, patiently answered my questions and my hubby's, and could help make comparison shopping easy for the short list of alternatives. Not to mention that he was cool about answering my skeptical Brooklyn born hubby's questions about what the tech contracts did and didn't cover in the event my husband should want to buy one.
Here's a pretty good connection to the car sales analogy. it is the job of the sales people to offer the extended warranties. Which doesn't mean you have to buy them, but perhaps be less difficult about it than is my husband.
Hubby's new laptop secured, at a great value price when a sale went into effect the second day and we went back to buy it. Throughout all of this, across both days, Matt made us feel like valued customers. No pressure sales, what I'd have called consultative selling back in my time at same, and left us feeling pretty darned good about Best Buy overall in the event we ever need assistance in the future, either for support for hubby's laptop or to buy that Ipad I have on my birthday wish list later this year.
Yes, I dislike the size of Best Buy's cavernous stores, high noise levels and overall sensory chaos. But our experience in each of our three purchases from Bend's store have been that the store was well stocked and all personnel were friendly and ultimately we got the best price among Bend alternatives for items we wanted. So I'd have given them four stars to now. But Matt's help pushes that right up to five stars.
In fact, on the way home I mused to my hubby of 33 years that if I was 35 years younger and unattached, I'll be finding a lot of reasons to go into Best Buy's computer department to try to determine if Matt was unattached too. There's a tip for you young single ladies who might get all the way through this review. :-) read more