I wanted to buy a new computer at a store, instead of online, so I could ensure a salesperson earns a commission. The experience was not great, though there were some bright spots.
I was initially directed to the Apple area. Two employees were working there with other customers - no problem. They disappeared after a bit, seemingly with those customers. About ten minutes of waiting later, hoping someone would be ready, I found both employees at the Microsoft area. No one had been available in the Apple area for that long - it seems understaffed.
Someone in sales worked with me and was largely informative. The process wasn't inefficient; buying a new piece of technology takes time. Even so, it got a bit frustrating when two errors came up. First, upon transferring me over to the Geek Squad section, so I could have them transfer the data and assess the resale value, the first error came through: The transfer was said to be $40, but the woman at GS told him me was mistaken, and that it's $40 to transfer data between phones but $90 for computers to do so.
I will give them credit for the high resale value of my old computer - Apple's online estimator gave me a paltry $35, whereas Best Buy assessed it to about $150. Still, the process of figuring out whether or not I could apply that directly to the bill, had to do a store credit, etc., was something the employees had to ask multiple other people about. It is OK to do that, of course, but it felt inefficient to this degree.
As the GS employee looked through my computer, she mentioned that they'd have the new computer ready (with the data transfer) within 24-48 hours. I was very surprised! I politely mentioned that no one had told me that it would be an "overnight" thing - taking some time was anticipated, but overnight or even 2 days?! She was surprised I hadn't been told yet. Sales very much should've mentioned this, and there should be more coordination between teams. I wound up leaving it overnight, especially since my old computer already got the resale value assessed and needed to be there. It was ready pretty early the next day, which is good, but this was overall frustrating.
Not as important, but they love to have 2-3 loud songs all playing at the same time. It is one thing to have different songs in different areas of a large store, but this was all quite close together, in terms of where the sound was coming from, and it was jarring and annoying.
EDIT: I forgot to add...they have roving salespeople from AT&T who make eye contact with you while you're waiting around and then take advantage of your kindness. I find this process frustrating, similar to people with clipboards trying to get you to sign something. It is intrusive and tacky. I don't know why they allow this. read more