Best Buy Pushy Sales Rep with Warranty?
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Question: Best Buy Pushy Sales Rep with Warranty?
I made an 0 purchase with 2 items yesterday at Best Buy. I was offered the extended warranty on both (0 extra) and for the first time I declined. The sales rep became so pushy and overly rude that my wife and I almost left the store. She made numerous comments implying my ignorance in electronics and how much I needed the warranty. My Question: Is there a reason she was so pushy? Does she get commission? A better schedule? A Bonus? Anything? for making warranty sales?
The following is the answer:
Answer by Prometheus _…
FAR AS I KNOW THEY DONT MAKE COMMISSIONS. I DONT KNOW ABOUT THE OTHER STUFF …BUT I WOULD CALL THE MANAGER AND TELL HIM/HER WAT HAPPENED.. GET HER NAME AS WELL THE EMPLOYEE
Answer by Martin Burkholder, CRIS., CPIA
In the past I have worked for Best Buy or their affiliated companies for 7 years.
The sales person does not get a commission, better schedule, bonus or anything other then a pat on the back for making warranty sales. The only exception to this would be if the sales person in question was a department supervisor. Supervisors can receive a bonus on a monthly basis for meeting performance targets in revenue, warranty sales, accessory sales, secret shopper scores and profit margin. They use a ranking system that takes these metrics and converts them to a department ranking amongst similar departments across the company. The bonus is not very much at best 00 for a top performing department supervisor.
The way it works is Best Buy sells a warranty for 9.99 lets say for a camcorder. The warranty is really an insurance policy on that item from an insurance company lets call ABC Insurance. ABC Insurance sells that policy to Best Buy for .99 so on every sale Best Buy profits 9.99 on that warranty. The margin on consumer electronics is so low that if retailers did not sell accessories and warranty’s they would lose money in the long run.
I was a supervisor over 7-8 different departments over the years and if you took accessories and warranty’s out of it we would often either lose a few hundred dollars or make a few hundred dollars. And this is not counting the expense for sales people etc.
In most cases you would be better off not purchasing the warranty due to the high cost vs. the price of the product. However many of the warranty’s offer preventative maintenance or replacement parts that often go bad. Lamps in DLP TVs, Laptop battery’s etc. In these cases you may pay 9 for a warranty on a DLP TV but get a lamp replacement worth 0-0 even if there is not a malfunction with you product. The major issue is many consumers do not remember to get their replacements etc.
In general many of the advertised items in the weekly sale are sold at a loss to get customers in the door. That DVD on sale each week for .99 most often is sold at a loss of -3 but it drives people into the store. Tuesdays are often a money losing day for the media department due to new release sales.
I hope this helped.
Answer by singdancerunlife
First off, Best Buy doesn’t have warranties. They have protection/replacement plans (Black Tie Protection).
No, there is no commission or perks other than the manager saying good job to department X during Chalk Talk at opening the next day.
However, the Black Tie Protection (BTP) is a lot of what makes or breaks the day in terms of reaching budget.
We always have to offer, and explain the benefits, but there is absolutely no reason to be pushy about it. Customers have to make their own decisions about what they want. Also, there’s a 30 day grace period in which you can decide to add the BTP to a purchase.
I’m sorry that you had such a bad experience with the salesperson. At Best Buy we try to handle each customer’s case individually and get you what you need, and there’s no point in pushing something a customer doesn’t have an interest in. I hope that you will continue shopping at Best Buy.
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