I was in Best Buy this weekend picking up a game for my PSP. Best Buy is one of those stores (like Home Depot) where I walk every aisle, just in case there's some manner of consumer electronics sweetness that I've managed to miss.
Problem is, there are these weird floor associates who won't leave you the frick alone. You can't take a stroll two feet without some over-caffeinated tech dork breathing down your neck. "Can I help you? Can I help you?" they chirp. Even a disinterested "Nah" without so much as a glance upward doesn't work. They stick to you like glue.
I was walking down the aisle where they have cheap portable keyboards. I have a nice, expensive one at home, but as I walked by, I wanted to see how the cheap ones sounded. So I walked up to one, cast a glance around to make sure there were no weird sales dorks lurking around and tapped out the first few notes of the piano solo from "A String of Pearls." I swear to you - I barely touched it before a sales dork came up behind me and started asking me questions.
"Hey. Howareya? Howlongyoubeenplaying? Thisoneisnicebuttheonebelowitisnicer. Blah, blah, blah, blah..."
He must have teleported in. And he was acting like that little cartoon puppy who used to follow the big cartoon bulldog around, going "HeySpike, howzitgoing? Huh? Huh? Huh?"
Overzealous floor salespeople really tweak me. I ended up getting rid of this guy by telling him I already had one, but he wasn't getting the message that I didn't want him tailing me all over the store. He followed me almost all the way back up to the counter.
It's not like these guys know what they're doing, either. Ask one of them a basic computer question and it's like someone blew their buffers. They just kind of stand there and stutter like idiots until you get frustrated and walk away.
Stores like this should issue customers a little pager when they walk in. Press the button and help shows up (and not before). And they should actually train people to know what the heck they're selling.
Posted by THespos at November 21, 2005 10:00 AM | TrackBackI agree. I hate being stalked by eager blue shirted associates, mostly of the 22-29 year old variety. This is a great example of incentives gone awry. As far as I am concerned, this is zone defense against buying something. I go in one section that's popular and the resident expert is too busy chasing a two dollar commission to talk to me. When I try to talk to an associate about (fill in the blank) he doesn't know bupkus (sic?) because he is from another section (read commission territory). Imagine if you had a different real estate agent for each room of the house. You would never buy the house!
Please spare me. I will only go into Best Buy if I've done my research ahead of time -- on the Internet, of course -- I can only deal with a surgical strike into a store with that type of associate behavior!
Posted by: Chet Geschickter at November 22, 2005 06:25 AM
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