Ramona Rosales
Educating the Blue Shirts
One of the biggest implications of the new center-of-the-store strategy affects how Best Buy trains its employees. In 2008, the company says, it introduced the Learning Lounge, an online education program that Blue Shirts are paid to access at work or on their own time. “Blue Shirts have to have 54 hours of training within their first 90 days so that they are prepared to meet our customers when they’re on the store floor,” says Judge. Employees who specialize in certain areas (digital imaging, appliances, TVs) attend additional sessions throughout the year that sometimes span several days, he adds.
JUST THE FACTS
- Founded 1966 as the Sound of Music store in St. Paul
- Headquarters Richfield, Minn.
- Fiscal 2009 sales $45 billion
- Fiscal 2009 net income $1 billion
- Employees 160,000
- Retail stores 1,023
- The geeks shall inherit the Earth Best Buy employs more than 20,000 Geek Squad “agents.”
Judge also mentions a new free call or chat service for after-sales support and points to Twelpforce, a new Twitter-based program aimed at customers. Through Twelpforce, “I blog and tweet, and so do thousands of our employees from across all operations, including Blue Shirts and Geek Squad agents,” he explains. “Employees answer product questions, troubleshoot technology challenges and solve customer service issues, all from the comfort of the user’s keyboard or mobile phone.”
Calling Twelpforce “a very public experiment,” Judge notes that the unstructured approach carries a certain amount of risk. Still, he says, the program has the potential to help customers “do the things they aspire to with technology.” It also blurs the lines between customer service and more traditional marketing communications. “With Twelpforce specifically and social media in general, we can actively seek out the conversations that increasingly are happening outside our channels,” he says.
Building on History
Rather than making a radical departure, the new solutions-oriented Best Buy is building on the culture that has made it a success, Dunn says. Only three CEOs have captained the company in its 43-year history. Founder Richard Schulze learned about electronics in the Minnesota Air National Guard and as an independent consumer electronics manufacturers’ representative before opening the Sound of Music to cater to St. Paul University students in 1966, the company says. Having grown to nine locations, the audio chain kept adding merchandise until nature intervened: When a storm leveled one of his stores, Best Buy says, Schulze organized a “tornado sale,” and consumers responded enthusiastically to the large selection of goods, low prices and heavy advertising, inspiring Schulze to open the first Best Buy, an 18,000-square-foot superstore, in 1983.
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Dunn joined the company two years later. “I was 25 years old, about to get married, and thought it would be a good idea to have a job,” he recalls, noting that his mother, Ethel, worked in Best Buy’s nascent advertising department and suggested he apply to a nearby store. “She said, ‘Honey, they sell these VCRs here that are about the size of a table, and people are crazy for them.’”
The oldest of five children, Dunn says he began working while in middle school and that the only higher education he received was on-the-job training at Best Buy. He rose through the ranks, from store manager to district manager, and in 2002, the year Anderson became the company’s second CEO, Dunn was made senior vice president of East Coast retail sales. In 2004 he was named president of North American retail, and advanced to president and COO in 2006.Dunn says he learned a large amount from both of his Best Buy CEO predecessors. “Dick had this great idea that he nurtured into what became Best Buy,” says Dunn. “Brad challenged us at a time when we were flying high to embrace ‘customer-centricity,’ inspiring 100,000 people to create their version of Best Buy.”
Both former CEOs also praise Dunn. “Brian understands very clearly what I consider to be the most challenging job in this company — the successful interchange between the customer and the sales associate, the customer service representative, the installer and everyone else who touches the customer,” says Schulze, who at 68 remains chairman. Adds Anderson, 60: “Brian has helped breed a fierce company loyalty among Best Buy employees. He also has fostered an organizational ability to adapt to change quickly and positively.”
