A few weeks ago I wrote a post entitled Yet Another Example of a Great Deal Without Fighting Crowds in which I spoke of how a friend of mine saved almost 50% on a new television with delivery, installation, haul-away, rewards, etc. via a Black Friday special at Best Buy.  As it turns out, the savings were exactly as advertised, but what happened between the time the order was placed and the time the installation was completed was somewhat discouraging.  It certainly has made me think twice about whether or not I will give any of my future business to these two companies.

Problems from the start

The process was flawed right from the beginning, as Best Buy’s web site would not calculate the total purchase price correctly.  The instructions stated to add the television and the Geek Squad service to the cart, and the total would automatically be calculated at the advertised sales price.  Not so.  The television was marked down inside her cart, but the Geek Squad service was still being included in the total and the tax calculations.  A call to the internet sales department revealed a glitch in their software, and they generously offered to run the transaction over the phone.  However, they could not do anything about the contributions she would be losing from linking to the Best Buy website via Upromise, which was a problem.  Luckily, some time later, the site error was resolved, and the purchase was completed.

Supposed delivery scheduled
She received the order and delivery confirmations via e-mail a few hours later, and did not hear anything for a couple of days.  Come Tuesday, she received a phone call from someone stating that they were representing Best Buy regarding the delivery and setup of her television.  She had requested, and was subsequently granted, the earliest time slot of 8-10:30 AM on the following Saturday (which was the day that she wanted and marked during the order process).  All seemed well, as she did not hear anything further and was satisfied up to that point.

Confusion ensues endep 50
Late Friday comes around (the day before the supposed scheduled delivery) and she receives another phone call from the Best Buy shipping and scheduling department to confirm and schedule her delivery for the following afternoon between 3:30 PM and 5:00 PM.  Interesting, seeing how she already spoke to someone earlier in the week and thought that everything was taken care of.  It turns out that the first call was from the Geek Squad solely to confirm the installation of the television.  This second caller explained that the delivery and installation was done by two different companies, hence the two separate phone calls.  She inquired as to the timing of the calls: why would an installer call first to set the time before the delivery was even scheduled?  No answer from the representative, just a recap of how there are two different companies that handle the different parts of the process.  She finally gets to speak to a supervisors, and lo and behold, no new information just apologies for the confusions and more regurgitation about the delivery process.  The supervisor did promise to send her a $75 gift card and to attempt to get in touch with the installer to better coordinate the process.  After hours of not hearing anything, she calls Best Buy’s online service center to discover that nothing had been resolved, but was told that the installer was left a message to contact her regarding the problem.  He did get in touch with her and agreed to re-work his schedule to make her the last stop on his route and said that he would get in touch with her to confirm the delivery of the television and ensure that he would fit her in before the day was over.

Delivery day: complete insanity false tramadol positve drug test hydrochloride
Saturday arrives, and she goes about her business to accomplish all of her errands and be sure that she is home to receive the television.  The delivery driver indeed calls her within the allotted time to inform her that he is leaving his current stop for her house.  A few minutes later, she receives another call from the driver stating that he is on her street but cannot find her address.  As it turns out, he in not on her street as he had thought, but rather he is a half a mile away on another street with a similar, albeit different and distinctive name.  She gives him directions from his current location, and he still makes the delivery on time.  Upon his arrival, he takes the television out of the package and plugs it in, hooking up the cable and turning on the unit to ensure that it works.  He then leaves.  He doesn’t set up the television, doesn’t show her how to use the basic features to do on her own, nor does he clean up all of the packaging.  He does, however, remove the old unit as was stated in the service description.  Upon being handed the delivery receipt, she inspects the address which was printed on the slip and sees that the address was recorded correctly; the driver apparently did not read it correctly nor did he have any type of navigation system in the truck to help locate his delivery destinations.

Now that the delivery was complete, the rest should have been a breeze since she had called the installer and notified him of this fact.  He stated that he was at his last stop for the day before her, and would be at her house in 45 minutes.  This was at 6:30 PM.  He finally arrived at 8:15, although he did take the time to touch up a few cabling issues and to make sure that everything was tidy and labeled and he dis take the time to walk her though the functions of the new television.

I was informed of everything pretty much as soon as each event happened, so I was already forming an opinion of the service she received the entire time.  As of today, she has yet to receive that gift card she was promised, and I have yet to fully comprehend how such a debacle could occur.  All I know for sure is that both Best Buy and Geek Squad need to coordinate much better, and that I personally will have to keep this incident in mind should I require such services for myself or anyone else I know in the future.  But, I’m sure like with anything this may have been an isolated incident–only time and other people’s reviews will tell.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 5:56 pm and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.