Emmett writes: Dear Mr. Schoonover:
I would like to make you aware of an incident that occurred in your Burnsville, MN Circuit City yesterday. I read about your Unbeatable Price Guarantee on your website. I had an ad from Costco for a Magellan GPS that was significantly less than the Circuit City price. Before driving 20 miles in a snow storm, I called your Burnsville store and spoke with Tom. Tom told me that because Costco is a local retailer, I would be eligible for the Unbeatable Price Guarantee…
So I drove down to the store, brought the GPS and the Costco ad to the checkout. The teller called for a manager to override the price. The manager declined to do so. So I asked to speak with the store manager. I was introduced to Brad, who later refused to give his last name. I explained the situation to Brad, and he said he would not match the Costco price because it was a club. I told him that I looked on the CC website and that it didn’t say club prices were not eligible; and I reminded him that one of his employees ensured me that the price would be matched. Brad said there are more limitations to the policy in a pamphlet. I asked to see the pamphlet and he refused. He then said it didn’t matter what the pamphlet stated, because he made the rules in “his store” I persisted. I asked again to see in writing where club prices wouldn’t be matched. He told me there was no way he was going to match the price and that I should leave. I said I would gladly leave once he proved to me that the club portion of the policy existed. He response: he called the police! I was there with my 5 year old son, who became very scared by Brad’s irrational behavior. Of course, out of concern for my child, we left immediately.
I hope you are as outraged by Brad’s irrational and arrogant behavior as I am. I have always been treated well by your employees in the past. I am interested in the true policy about price matching clubs. Does CC match Costco ads? If so, I would still be interested in purchasing the GPS from Circuit City.
Thank you for your attention to this matter,
Emmett
Don’t ever let stores bully you around by conjuring up nonexistent policies. When a store denies a reasonable request, whip out your phone and call the corporate office. Even if the manager was correct, he should have known that calling the cops is the worst possibly way to resolve a customer service issue.
At the very least, Circuit City should honor the price match and apologize to both Emmett and his son for their manager’s egregious behavior.
(Photo: Xurble)
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@graymulligan: I also disagree. I’m a former employee of CC, who worked there for almost 5 years. Everyday pricing is matched/beaten. Sale pricing is also to be matched/beaten. The only “sale” pricing that is not included in that are as follows: closeouts, clearance items, after rebate priced items, limited quantity/supply items, any kind of temporary sale item(5-hour sale), and open box items. There are probably more, but I don’t work there anymore… so I don’t care. I will say that items that destroy profit margin, such as this gps, are usually not going to be price matched. However, nine times out of ten, there will be a much more valid reason behind it, other than, “We just don’t want to.”
Most of the time, it’s as I stated in my previous comment. The only reason that they’re showing up is because the store they intended to buy it from did not have the item in stock, and, nine times out of ten, the customer shoots his/herself in the foot by saying that’s the reason they’ve given CC their patronage for that particular outing.
I don’t understand:
1. Why are you talking about the company’s or the store’s “policies?” (other than the fact that the store manager irrelevantly brought up “policy” when he was telling the customer why he wouldn’t honor the advertised price). It seems to me that the relevant facts are that the store said in an advertisement that it would match any competitor’s price but when a customer called its bluff the store manager admitted that he didn’t care what the advertisement said. Is false advertising illegal at all (in Minnesota)?
2. Why are you talking about California penal code? Burnsville MN is in Minnesota.
3. How could somebody be so unselfconscious that he would freely and without embarrassment admit to thinking corporately?
why don’t you just go to Costco and buy the gps? it’s not like you bought it in CC and then found the price in costco…
I didn’t read the other comments here but wanted to point this out: Circuit City gladly price matched Costco on my $1000 Harman/Kardon receiver, down to $599. They initially said, “We don’t price match Costco.” I asked why, and the response was, “Costco won’t verify prices over the phone.” (This is a true statement). I said, “If I can show you the product on Costco’s web site, where you will see the price, would that work?” They said yes and price matched it no problem.
My seriously, honestly, true advice to shopping?
NEVER EVER EVER BE LOYAL TO ANY STORE, EVER. _EVER_.
Never be loyal to any store, bargain hunt, don’t price match.
If you see a good price at an OK store, go for it IMMEDIATELY – don’t wait.
You have to be dirt poor before you realize this survival technique.
[www.pricewatch.com]
Includes online deals.
Lol thats what you get from buying from Circuit Shitty. I buy all my tech stuff from Best Buy or the internet. No prob
@Sherryness: Dead on, thank you.
A GOOD manager in this case (which obviously some of our resident shills are not) would have fessed up to the actual policy (including proving it if that’s actually what it says), apologized because he’s responsible for his employee giving bad information, and preferably also allowed the price match even if it wasn’t policy, because someone just drove out of their way on $4 gasoline just to come to your store because your employee told them they could have a certain price.
This proves that Circuit City hires bad management. How they handle this complaint will show how far up the chain that bad management goes.
I’ve been told by both Best Buy and Circuit City that they won’t match club prices. Whether it’s official policy or not – why stand there and argue with some idiot store manger in front of your 5 year old. Better to leave and call the corporate offices. Furthermore – what’s with the ridiculous letter saying that he would still like to buy the damn GPS from Circuit City – Hell with that. I would never buy from them again – This is why the are on their way out.
@cheviot:
The key difference between a price match policy and a return policy is that at the point of refusing the price match policy, you haven’t given them any money. A store is not obligated to make any given sale. They can’t decline because you’re black or female or other protected classes, but they can because you’re a pain in the ass or wear ugly shoes. If a company refuses to honour their guarantees often enough, they’ll get bad PR about it, but the customer hasn’t really lost anything if they don’t choose to buy the product at the higher price. Return policies, on the other hand, have a definite financial harm attached, and are part of the contract of sale.
OK, I’ll bite. I’m a “corporate” guy and have at various time in my career been responsible for setting corporate policy. Policy is important so that we can ensure that our business model and practices remain consistent and controllable. If not for policy we would have hundreds of locations all acting independently and unpredictably making it very hard to manage the corporate brand image.
Nothing pisses me off quite so much as a manager, hired to MANAGE based on corporate policy, who takes it upon himself to rewrite the rules on the spot. Sure, a quick-thinking manager who can adapt on the spot is an asset. But they should always act within the spirit of the corporate culture.
The “corporate thinking” to which some have alluded is the type of thinking that gets the airlines, Comcast, CC and countless others into trouble.
Price match policies work to entice customers to make their purchase with the comfort that they are getting the best available price for a product; they need to look no further. The policy does not guarantee that any individual purchase will actually be at the lowest available price, only that if the customer can find a lower price the store will match the price. Think for a moment how many customers were lured into making a purchase because they interpreted the price match policy to mean that no one was selling the product at a lower price. Vendors need to accept price match policies are a double edged sword; they work to give customers comfort that they are getting the best price so they should complete the sale, but they also obligate the vendor to match prices in accordance with their policy otherwise the policy has no meaning. Maybe CC should be asked to refund all the money they collected from customers who paid more than the could have purchased the product at a competitor, but believed the price match policy assured them that they need to shop no further. Some of the posts don’t appear to understand that these price match policies work for the benefit of the vendor most of the time. The fact that these policies do not always work for the vendors benefit is a risk they understand and have accepted when they adopted the policy.
I think it would have been fair to match the price + the cost of the cheapest Costco membership, since that would be the cost if the customer had gone to Costco. The point of a price match is to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. On a big ticket item this still might have been cheaper for the customer but it would prevent people from unfairly abusing the system.
The other question of course, is Circuit City guilty of false or misleading advertising?
Circuit City is well known for denying legit price matches. Complaint to corporate won’t help because the store manager has the final word.
The best way is to NOT shop at circuit city.
I was the Lead Customer Service Associate until I walked out on them when they fired thousands for making too much money. I don’t shop with them or even like them any more but, I will tell you as a person who answered the phone at CC the conversation many times failed to spell out the whole story.
A customer calls, ask if we price match. We say yes and they hang up and drive to the store. Once in the store they present me with a ad from Sam’s Wholesale or Cosco. Then they get upset that we don’t match prices with them. I worked 5 years for them and It was always the policy to only price match local (with in the metro area) B&M stores.
I would guess that the customer was upset because he thought he had covered the basics and wanted to buy from CC because he had the CC credit card and not other credit he could use at Cosco.
Customer service issues over price adjustments are very time consuming and frustrating and now that they fired all the experienced people over a year ago, the new employees don’t seem to care.
It’s simple, costco makes up there gm via subscription. Why would anyone insist on dong business with someone refusing to do business. Its customers like you that really need to get over yourself. Would it be smart to buy something for a hundred dollars and sell it for 90? Places like costco have lower costs than cc and you pay a monthly or annual fee to enjoy those lower club prices. I dont understand why you didnt go costco. Let me guess, you had questions about it, they were out of it, it was further… if thats the case and feel you need the product that bad that you need to get out in an ice storm to argue with cc employees over $20.. who is the irrational one?