Entrepreneur & Innovation Exchange Published online at EIX.org on January 25 2017 DOI: 10.17919/X9901N How Best Buy Engages Employees in Putting Customers First Richard Schulze (Best Buy Inc) Kimberly Eddleston (Northeastern University) KEYWORDS: Retail Trade, Management of Companies & Enterprises, Entrepreneurship, Organization, Leadership. Most businesses say that they put the customer first. Yet customers today are more ready than ever to bolt. The changing fortunes of even venerable chains such as Macy's and Sears (http://fortune.com/2017/01/11/macys-death-retail- department-stores/) shows that no business is immune. Customer retention is at an all-time low, and it appears that many businesses struggle to gain customer loyalty. Customers routinely express dissatisfaction with product performance, complex communication procedures, pushy sales people and uninformed staff. Many complain about poor customer service, automated call centers, products not performing as promised, and a lack of information to guide purchase decisions. Because customers have more choices than ever before, when they are dissatisfied with a business they turn to a competitor and also influence other buyers through social media. However, those businesses that are able to make customers feel like "number one" enjoy loyal repeat customers who boost sales and also help attract new customers through good word of mouth. But with all the responsibilities entrepreneurs need to manage, how can they ensure that they have a customer-centric business? Best Buy, which generates nearly $40 billion in sales a year (http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2016/12/26/20 17-retailer-of-the-year-ceo-hubert-joly-puts-the-best-in- best-buy/#5f56fcba5f52) and whose stock price has risen dramatically in the past four years, has a strategy for keeping customers coming back: a mission that focuses on the customer experience and emphasizes the importance of the customer in everything the company does, from recruiting to training to employee decision-making. Rather than having a sales-directed environment that focuses on encouraging customers to spend the most money, Best Buy puts the customer in control. Sales associates are not paid by commission. Rather, their role is to serve as sources of information, so that customers feel confident making buying decisions. This also means that Best Buy needs to keep their finger on the pulse of the customer by anticipating product demand and consistently improving customer service. To do these things, Best Buy has created a system that relies heavily on employee engagement, making every employee responsible for the customer experience. Thus, to be a customer-centric business, Best Buy leverages the power of its employees who are instrumental in identifying customers’ pain points, understanding product features, staying on top of new trends and keeping an eye on the competition. Below are five key practices Best Buy uses to get employees focused on putting the customer first. Start By Recruiting The Best In order to offer the best customer experience, Best Buy looks to hire the best employees. For employees with customer contact, they seek people who can easily connect with others, enjoy being part of a team and want to be engaged. Besides considering their work experience, Best Buy looks for individuals with interesting hobbies and skills, often an indicator of their passion and willingness to learn. These outside interests also help employees connect with customers and can play a role in assigning the employee to the best department. For example, an individual who plays guitar may be well-suited for the home audio department, while an individual who enjoys photography would fit well with the camera department. Because Best Buy emphasizes teamwork, they also make the hiring process inclusive by having job candidates meet staff from their prospective department. Staff are instructed to look for "fit" and to determine if the candidate "knows what she says she knows." This last point is key in putting the customer first, since employees often need to rely on one another to answer customers’ complex questions. Copyright © The Authors. Entrepreneur & Innovation Exchange is published at EIX.org. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. View EIX.org Authorship Terms at https://eix.org/terms