Strongly Worded Letter #3

Best Buy Co., Inc.
Corporate Headquarters
P.O. Box 9312
Minneapolis, MN

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have been a Best Buy Reward Zone member for several years now and shop at your store almost every single week. As a frequent CD, DVD, and electronics buyer I appreciate your low prices on many items and understand you must operate the company efficiently in order to be able to offer such value.

Having acknowledged that, you simply must do more to make your service by telephone more customer friendly. It's no secret that Best Buy has farmed out its customer call center to India to save money, as have hundreds of other U.S. companies. It saddens me but I understand that this is just how the new world order works.

But at what price? My latest call to the customer service center (trying to correct an error you made with my reward zone membership) was just the latest in a long line of frustrating contacts with your company.

If I may generalize based on my own personal experience,  your Indian employees are under trained by half. They are able to read the company script in front of them but do not understand it well enough to go off the page and answer any relevant question.

Your computers or computer programs seem to be either too slow or too complicated to allow the phone answerer to quickly access account information, make changes, or offer referrals for more information.

I applaud anyone who is able to be conversant in more than one language - I certainly am not - but the level of English proficiency I have encountered when I call Best Buy  may be fine for giving directions to the train but is woefully inadequate for conducting business.    

On that same point, since we know you no longer hire Americans to answer phones and now expect to be calling India when we dial, please don't insult us by having the young woman answer the phone and tell me her name is Wendy.

Sincerely,

Comments

[Greg Franklin]

Amen! I stopped shopping at Best Buy after a similar experience a few years ago. Their customer service over the phone is the worst.

[Diane]

Give them credit for at least giving you the option of speaking to a person about your problem. Dell, on the other hand, only offers encounters with a live human being if you want to make a purchase. I cancelled my Dell account after my personal information was stolen, and I found it was impossible to reach anyone at Dell who could assist me with cancelling my account to avoid improper charges. In response to my strongly worded letter enclosing a check paying off the balance and cancelling my account, I received, not an apology or explanation, but a nasty letter notifying me that when I inevitably returned to Dell and sought to open a new account, they couldn't guarantee that I would be accepted.

I haven't purchased a Dell product since then.

[Geo]

Great letter Bean, but I think once they get
your letter they'll read it and say something
like, shhhhhmuck and file it. What seems to work is a mass public rant via t.v. or RADIO.

p.s. Most call centers are now relocating to
Costa Rica. It's even cheaper to run them from
there. Ola dis is Bill.

[angie]

Oh my sweet Bean, you so hit that nail right on the head....

[LA]

Yeah, the fake American name is laughable.

Did you know that when you call to order Domino's, you are now calling India?

Diane - That is a terrible story about Dell, but not a surprising one.

Ever notice that the "E" in the Dell logo is identical to the "E" in the Enron logo? Dell's in bed with Wal-Mart, too, all connected in Texas to the current administration.

[Vic Rattler]

A great SWL, well worth the wait.

When she tells you her name is Wendy, tell her your name is Chitra.

[The_bohemian_jester]

I'm thinking of writing this exact letter to border's bookstore myself. What a travesty.

[Fred G]

Don't get me started on customer service! All I want is "hello", $$$ is your total", "Thank You" and a little help when needed. The only places that don't disappoint are In-n-Out and, shockingly, my local McDs.

[EditThis]

Seriously, don't get me started on the lack of Customer Service rant. What happened to the customer is always right? Or at the very least, treat the customer with some respect since they just spent $500 in your store? And I do find it totally annoying that they give out a bullshit western name.

[Frances]

That is a strongly worded letter right there. I'm sure the minute it is received it will promptly be read by Best Buy's letter-reading department located in Beijing, China.

[Jim from Columbus]

I had a very similar problem with Best Buy recently. They had mixed my and someone else's Rewards Zone data together.

I finally gave up trying to straighten that out and did most of my Xmas shopping at Amazon vs. Best Buy.

It took 20 minutes to get to a person, then she was very belligerent.

I wrote a similar strongly worded letter to Best Buy with no response. Oh well.

And if I had to choose, I would pick a CSR from Costa Rica over India any day of the week.

[Gail]

Is anyone as nervous as I am when I call India with a bank or credit card question? Here is someone in another country with ALL my information at their fingertips. I wonder how tempting my monthly take home pay is to their annual salary. Even if they are bonded how would that hold up in a US Court? Or would I have to file in India? Better keep my passport at home...

[Kings Fan]

"...directions to a train" followed by "...conducting business". Very funny word play.

[Michelle]

Did you know that when you call Dominos, you're transferred to India? You can't even order pizza in America anymore!

[John E]

A. Excellent letter
B. Seriously, I work with a lot of folks from India and you would be surprised at the names you find. Sure, I work with a Prithviraj and a Sanjeev and a few Suresh's, but I also work with a Melvin, a Mario, a Robert, a Nancy, an Anthony and a Merlin and they are ALL full-on, born and raised Indians. So I think it's probably true that her name was really Wendy.

[Delilah]

You probably do work with people with those names if you work in America! But I doubt there are many Wendys in India.

[Matt]

I've got the perfect solution. On 12/23/07, which is the Sunday before Christmas Eve, lets all NOT shop at Best Buy to boycott them for sending their customer service to India.

And if you do make a call to Best Buy and you get India remember to say "Thank You"

[Tom]

Some customer service systems in India have even installed programs into the phone system that is supposed to filter out their incoherent accents. True story. Apparently, they don't work very well, but the effort is nice.