Best Buy’s Comeback?

Would you rather go to Best Buy or shop online for the best deals? Most of us have become so accustomed to shopping online in the comfort of our own time and place. The internet has become a life saver for people who don’t know much about technology, in helping find out more information about products and finding the best deals. So, then why go to Best Buy?

Best Buy is relying on an employee who worked there for 26 years to help the business fix one main problem that has been bringing the corporation down tremendously, it’s customer service. Shawn Score, Best Buy’s senior vice president of U.S retail agrees that when it comes to customer service, Best Buy has let go. This is a big issue for Best Buy, mostly because 90% of its revenue comes from the stores.

[image]

Score says he has a white binder on his desk with a list of “pain points” which catalog some of the main reasons why customers walk out of Best Buy: uninterested employees and out of stock items. Ever since Score was approached by Chief Executive Hubert Joly, he has been improving the stores with the lessons he’s learned from running Best Buy’s small mobile outlets.

Some of the things that Score has been changing in the stores are mainly for the employees. He’s encouraged more sales training so that the employees know a lot more about the products they’re selling. Score began an incentive pay to reward workers for increasing sales and customer satisfaction. He made sure that managers also schedule employees accordingly, so that the most experienced ones worked on the weekends when the stores are the busiest. These fixes have decreased Best Buy’s loss to a certain extent, from $1.82 billion last year to $409 billion in February 2013. 

These numbers might look promising for the future, however in the long run, there are many customers like John Hopper who no longer rely on the advices of Best Buy employees for things he needs to buy. Hopper has turned to the internet for his research purposes. According to Best Buy, 20% of electronics are bought online. This might seem like a small number but when Best Buy faces its online competitors who don’t have high operating costs because of labor and leases, it is a big deal.

Score is attempting to bring more customers into the store and actually make a sale. While, the sales rates haven’t improved, their customer service scores have gone up. Best Buy has also doubled its shares but is this enough for Best Buy to make a comeback? Best Buy has to take a lot of things into consideration at this point. In class we’ve learned about the ten critical decisions such as inventory managing, human resources, intermediate and short term scheduling. Will Best Buy be able to make strong decisions for the future? Do you think that they’re on the right path, considering that their customer service is improving or will online shopping take over?

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324743704578444733449436900.html?mod=WSJ_mgmt_LeadStoryCollection

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21SyJSTbjZQ – From last April.