Best Buy and 360 bundling revisited

BEST BUY DID a good thing. If you recall the whole XBox360 fiasco ( 1, 2, 3 and others), BB came out looking pretty, umm awkward.

It said it would investigate the problems, and it was against policy, people should not do it, and the rest of the usual PR babble. Normally, that is as far as it goes, and you never hear about the follow ups, mainly because firms don't want out that they did bad, and heads rolling down stairways is a good sign of that.

As you know we are not content to let a story rest in pieces, and thanks to some good people at Best Buy, we have a conclusion to this story, or at least two of them. The first is users/buyers, and that is not the good one.

Of the people I talked to that got burned, not one ended up satisfied. As far as I am aware, most gave up before word got out to the managers to follow orders, and no plans were implemented to tell people who might not have heard, or were given the cold shoulder on launch day. That is the bad, but it isn't the end of the world.

Now for the good, it seems heads did roll at Best Buy. We are told a manager that started the procedure is no longer employed at Best Buy. At least one senior district manager is no longer employed, and some of the nailings are rumored to have gone even higher.

The big yellow inquisition did not stop there, and several other managers and assorted white collar workers were given an escorted walk to the parking lot, I understand. Those that are left are said to be in serious CYA mode, and probably will think long and hard before "encouraging" customers to pump up their numbers.

Either way, congratulations to Best Buy for doing the right thing. Hopefully it was not because of the spotlight, and they are genuinely interested in doing the right thing, for the right reasons. I guess we can say this one has had a mostly happy ending. µ