[harangatang]

Originally Posted by MWM

I worked at Steinberg's years ago before it closed down. This was before Best Buy had a national presence. It was basically us and Circuit City. There was a lot of overlap in people. One of the managers in my store (Field Ertel Road) was a former manager at Circuit City. We had people leave to go there. Heck, I even interviewed there when I worked at Steinberg's. In sales training at both places it was all about the warranties. They care a lot more about that than they do about your actual sales volume. The reason is that these waranties are almost 100% profit. They're one of the biggest ripoffs out there. The commission percentages on these things were ridiculous. If you wanted to make to good money in sales at a place like that, you did it through selling the warranties.

At one point, there was a policy in my store that if you didn't close an extended warranty on a customer, you were required to bring in one of the "closers" to give it a shot. If they were able to get the deal done, you had to split the commission. This policy was my last straw and the primary reason why I left a few months before I planned to (took a year and a half off school during undergrad. This was when I worked there). I hated spending time with people, getting to know them, feeling like I was really helping them get what they needed, only to have them absolutely beaten down by someone else because they didn't want the warranty.

But Best Buy came in and changed this. Heck, that's the only reason I started going to Best Buy for these things. I hated being hounded about the warranties. At Best Buy, the simply ask you if you want it while you're going through the check out line. If you say no, that's the end of the discussion. It's just the beginning at some of these other places. Radio Shack is the worst. I bought a couple of cell phones there and both times I was about the punch the sales person out if they said another word about the warranty. But Best Buy, as a company policy, does not push people on warranties. It's a one time question and nothing more. They don't get paid on them, nor are they evaluated on them.

You know what's funny about that is when I bought a computer a few years I went to Best Buy first. I decided on something and the kid who was selling me the computer asked me about buying a service plan. I politely said no which was fine until the "closer" came in and started pressuring me. After he got really really pushy I left the store and told the man I would never be back. The look on that guy's face was absolutely priceless. I went to Circuit City and everything was fine, no pushy sales people or anything.