It used to be that Best Buy employees specialized in one department, and were trained accordingly. I don’t know if I would say most were “experts,” but they definitely knew enough to be helpful. Best Buy seems to have transitioned to a “jack of all trades, master of none” model. I was hired for my previous expertise in one department, but due to the constant lack of proper coverage, I was expected to run around the entire store answering questions I didn’t know the answers to. I always just told customers “sorry, they didn’t schedule anyone who actually knows that, but I can google it if you want.” But I also saw employees (especially management) confidently answer customers with clearly wrong answers rather than admit they didn’t know.
You’re also constantly pressured to sign people up for the credit card, and it seems like the products are just an excuse to try to get people to apply. I regularly saw employees incorrectly tell customers that the application was a soft credit check, and that they didn’t have to worry about it.
I worked for a few years at Best Buy a long time ago, and then briefly again recently for some extra cash, and while it always had problems, it was sad to see the direction it seems to be going.
