On August 12th, BestBuy, the multinational consumer electronics giant faced a “too good to be true” challenge. In error, they posted a 52 Samsung Digital TV for sale at $9.99 on their website . Now you and I both know, a 52 inch digital TV for $9.99 is either too good to be true, or its stolen merchandise (and BestBuy does not participate in the later). As one might expect, someone found the excellent buy, and the good news went viral via Twitter and various other forms of communication. At 11:00 AM (it appears to have been online for approximately 5-hours) BestBuy finally caught their error and promptly moved the price up to $1699. Then BestBuy informed those that purchased the TV that they would not honor their purchases, and would refund the $9.99, plus shipping costs.
On the surface, this is a simple story. Yes, a too good to be true story. However, there are several additional currents that should be challenged and investigated. Some of these are:
- What was the impact of BestBuy cancelling orders? Did some of these customers fully anticipate they would receive their product? Will some of these dissatisfied customers decide to shy away from BestBuy and encourage others to follow suit?
- What are some of the short and long term implications? Did the BestBuy brand get damaged? If yes, to what extent? Millions? Billions?
- What took BestBuy so long to catch the error? After all, BestBuy recently made a big deal about how their customer service agents were encouraged to utilize social media (i.e. Twitter…) to better serve their customers. This error should have been caught in minutes, not hours. Could their culture actually be getting in the way?
- Is this error simply an indicator of a much bigger problem inside BestBuy? After all, BestBuy did a massive downsizing at their corporate HQ in the fall of 2008, and many of their most talented employees took the buyout.
- Where were the checks and balances inside the BestBuy system? Why didn’t this error get caught before it made its way onto the BestBuy website?
- Was this simply a gimmick to get people to visit the BestBuy website and register? At least this is some of the rant on other blogs.
As a society, many of us are gullible for the too good to be true story. The Dot.Com story was a too good to be true story. Market bubbles such as the recent real estate bubble were a too good to be true story. And what about Madoff, Stanford, Petters and numerous others, each of these were a too good to be true story. Yes, we can be gullible and ultimately vulnerable. And yet no matter how often the story is told, we tend to be suckers for the next one that comes along. And this is a problem. Because as a society, we’re supposed to be getting smarter, yet sometimes I wonder about that. I’m afraid we’re simply predisposed to embrace the too good to be true offer when it comes our way. To close out this entry, I’m leaving you with a quote from my book “Without Warning.”
Our belief system regulates how we view the world and interface with it. It is and should be in a constant state of flux, simply because this place we call Earth is becoming so small and interconnnected. Not surprisingly, our beliefs also regulate how we view our organizations and play an important role in determining what is really important.
One of the best defenses against silent problems is creating a culture willing to challenge the status quo and surrounding ourselves with individuals who think differently than we do. These individuals may be internal to the organization, or external. Both sources can provide a critical look; listen to them.
And, the sage old words, “If it’s too good to be true, it usually is,” still resonates.
Bottom Line: BestBuy appears to have numerous silent problems (problems that are being avoided, neglected or are going unnoticed) inside the organization that will prevent them from being a star performer going forward.
