Why I may never order from BestBuy.com again (The $5 ROTK Digital Coupon Debacle) (1 Viewer)

[Grant H]

When ROTK EE was released, one of the best deals for it was to pre-order it for $21.99 (I believe) and get a $5 digital coupon as well.

I ordered, got the movie, no coupon. Others seem to have gotten their coupons shortly after the movie shipped. So, I emailed customer service. Keep in mind this was probably at least a few weeks after I got the DVD in the mail. A few days after my email, I got this response:

My 1st (underwhelming) response from BB Customer Service:

Grant,

Thank you for contacting Best Buy about your order. I'm Jarold with
Customer Care.

We appreciate your concern about not receiving your digital coupon,
and we'd be happy to help you.

To provide you with the most thorough and accurate response, we would
like to conduct research. Our Research and Solutions Team will get
back to you as soon as possible. If you need to contact us for an
update, please reply to this email and include your case number
********* in the subject line.

Did you know that Best Buy has an affiliate program? Add value to
your Web site and earn commissions by joining the BestBuy.com
Affiliate Program. When you direct a visitor from your Web site to
BestBuy.com and they make a purchase, you can earn commission dollars.

http://bestbuy.reporting.net/program_pages/promo.html

We appreciate your patience. Please do not hesitate to contact us
with additional questions or concerns.

Best wishes from Best Buy,
Jarold and the Customer Care Team

Then, a week after THAT:

Grant,

Thank you for contacting Best Buy about your online order. I'm Barb with
Customer Care.

We appreciate your interest in receiving Digital Dollars. This is a
complicated research issue and we are not yet able to provide you with a
complete resolution. You may expect to hear from us shortly once we fully
research the issue. Thank you again for your time and flexibility.

If anything should change, or your should have any questions in the interim,
please feel free to contact us at anytime for additional assistance. We look
forward to your next visit to one of our stores or to www.BestBuy.com

Best wishes from Best Buy,
Barb and the Customer Care Team

Still no coupon though. WTF?! How hard is it to see that I pre-ordered ROTK when the special was on? If they think I'm trying to swindle a second coupon couldn't they check to see if they sent me an email (that I never got) and disable the first coupon code? I don't think I'm going to order anything from BB.com again. Heck of a lot of fuss to go through to save $5. I already bought what I wanted to use the coupon toward somewhere else since the price went way up after release at BB. So, I bought it on sale somewhere else. Not as cheap as I could have gotten when it was on sale at BB and used the coupon, but oh well.

 

[Grant H]

Well, low and behold, they have finally granted me a new coupon.

Now, I have to find something wortwhile (at a good price) to use it on in the next two weeks.

 

[Kain_C]

Good thing you got what you wanted, BUT two things wrong with how you handled the situation:

1- Why did you wait "a few weeks" after getting your DVD to contact them? If it was so important, you should have sent an inquiry within a few days!

2- You should have had more patience with them instead of running over here and posting a problem. The fact that you waited so long to ask them about the matter was probably a reason it took them the length of time that it did. I would have given them a week or so to research the matter. They deal with many many orders at a time and it does take awhile.

Also, you should be GRATEFUL they communicated with you like they did. I have dealt with several online retailers that have NEVER responded back to me! What you just showed me actually impressed me.

 

[Grant H]

1. When I ordered, I believe the fine print on the offer said to expect the coupon 7 to 10 days after the order shipped (or something close to that). Figuring there were a lot of holiday orders, I didn't expect a delay to be out of the ordinary UNTIL I found out others had not experienced such a delay. It wasn't until I found out that others had received their coupon almost immediately after shipping I thought there might be a problem.

2. They DID take a week or so to research the matter and in the second email spit back essentially the same garbage they had in the first email saying they had to research it. What did they do the first time? Note, the first email was not just a machine-generated message saying they'd received my inquiry. As others have not been as fortunate as I have with the same deal, I don't think I was wrong to be unhappy with their customer service, and frankly, I think it's rude of you to say that I, as their customer did something wrong. So, I was supposed to be impatient at first and super-patient later?

I'm not the only one to be less than happy with Best Buy's in-store customer service, so voicing the problems with their on-line store as well seems well within bounds. Especially with what turned out to be a somewhat widespread problem. I've had better, faster customer service from MANY online retailers. I was a bit surprise the coupon I eventually did get was only good for two weeks, but maybe that's what the original offer stated. Of course, there were a lot bigger releases coming up at the time I placed my order.

Just seemed like a lot of time and work to go through just to "save" five dollars. Thought other members might like to know what they're in for next time they try to jump on a BB deal.

It also seems to me that if you're a business you should satisfy your obligation to the customer, and THEN do your precious research.

In addition, BB does not stick to their story. While they specified one timeframe at the time of the order, they told SOME, (not me mind you) that the delay was normal because they waited for the RETURN WINDOW to expire! Pick one story and stick to it, Best Buy!