Best Buy - Buying a Phone

Best Buy constantly oscillates between good and terrible customer service.  Sometimes, it seems that there are people working in the video game section that have never heard of Steam.  Other times, you run into a young man that wants to tell you what gaming mouse he bought and why it might be right for you.  They just run the gamut from amazing to awful.  Luckily, our experience upgrading my parents' phones was great.

Since my parents both decided to put cracks in their screens, they needed to be upgraded as soon as possible.*  The problem was that one of our upgrades wasn't available for another week.  We figured we could upgrade my mother's phone then take care of my dad's the following week.  They were only in town for so long, and since the account is under Mark's name, it is easier to do all of this when we're together.

When we walked into Best Buy, the cell phone area was incredibly busy.  We decided to browse the phones, even though my mother thought she knew what she wanted.  Some of the phones are working displays, but some are not.  After puttering around, she realized there was no live version of the LG Intuition.**

In hopes of seeing it, we decided to head over to the Verizon store.  They had a live version, and she like it very much.  Unfortunately, they were unwilling to price match or do anything to help us out on cost.  They also said we could not upgrade the second line early.  At this point, it was back to Best Buy.

When we rolled in this time, it was still quite busy.  We had our names added to a list and proceeded to wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Seriously, it took forever.  We were there after the store closed, and still, no one had helped us.  In their defense, I believe they were moving as fast as possible.

Finally, a very nice lady was able to speak with us.  We explained the situation.  The lady discussed mom's phone choice with her, indicating something else may be better for her.  She nudged her towards the phone Mark suggested, the Samsung Galaxy S3.  They let mom play with a live unit.  Since it was so late, we didn't buy any phones that night but decided to go home and do some research.  The lady was so incredibly helpful and knowledgeable that we asked if they worked on commission.  If we bought phones there, we wanted her to get credit.  There is no commission for them, though.

That night, mom checked out reviews for the phone she originally wanted and the one that had been suggested.  The Samsung Galaxy S3 handily won out.  It had better reviews and ratings.  On top of that, Mark found it for $79 on Amazon.

When we walked in the next day, we started the process again.  We had our names added to the list and proceeded to wait.  My dad and I walked around a bit, but in the end, we just sat around waiting.  Mom and Mark did the heavy lifting when the time came.  They did give us the live unit to play with while we waited, which was nice as my dad hadn't been with us the previous night.

Best Buy absolutely amazed us when it came to the phones.

1. The staff was knowledgeable.
2. They price matched Amazon, saving my mother almost $200.
3. The were able to do the second line's upgrade a week early, after Verizon had told us they could not.
4. When my mother's phone stopped working the next day, Best Buy just exchanged the phone for her with no problems.

While Best Buy sometimes has incredibly misplaced employees, the individuals running the phone section know what's going on.  When you factor in the price matching policy, Best Buy becomes a great place to buy a phone.  We were all impressed.

*I'm not indicating that it was intentional.  They're just accident prone.  She once washed her phone and didn't realize it until she heard it thumping around in the dryer.  It actually still worked after that.  The back-lighting was shot, but the phone worked otherwise.  Of course, this was before they had smart phones.

**Mark kept trying to talk her out of it, but he wasn't very forceful.  Eventually, it all works out.