Looks like another ex-Best Buy employee has outted his company's policies regarding You, The Customer. More properly known as You, The Angel or The Demon, depending on how cheap you are. The swell guys over at The Consumerist have the full scoop (and screenshots of the official documents), but here are the fun parts;
Best Buy's customer service strategy, initiated in 2004, basically tags everybody who walks in the door as buy-on-sight "Angels" who are blind to sales or rebate-o-rama bargain hunters ("Demons") who aren't there to spend any real money. You're also immediately stereotyped into one of eight personality types, from Buzz the early adopter to Helen and Charlie the empty nesters and super-yuppie Barry (expert hands can even break them down into "It's My Time Barry," 'Family First Barry," and "Entertainment Everywhere Barry"), and then each customer is approached accordingly. You get lots of attention if they peg you as a retiree with $10,000 in surplus annual income and no clue about "the internets," for example, and a lot more "guidance" if you appear to be a bored suburban housewife who's only thinking about her family's needs.
Needless to say, they're also trained to hit you with an extended warranty offer (especially you skinflint Demons) not because you particularly need one, but because they do.
Hey, the fact is not everything needs a warranty. An iPhone? Probably a smart move. The new $50 1GB iPod Shuffle? Probably not, unless you take yours spelunking... or if you're planning to keep it for three years, and want to drop six bucks as a guarantee it'll last that long. That's a SquareTrade warranty price, of course... Best Buy's is nine bucks for two years. We've got a 5-Day Guarantee and better reviews, too.
The lesson here is Pay Attention... and don't let anyone put you in a box.
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