Our 3D component coasters are on back-order and will arrive soon (these sold out in just 36 HOURS last time!), so make sure you get one: store.gamersnexus.net/products/3d-coaster-pack-4-component-coasters Our Red & Black HUD desk-sized mouse mat with custom red rubber underside is in stock & shipping now! store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-red-black-hud-mouse-mat You can also grab one of our highly durable PC building modmats here: store.gamersnexus.net/products/modmat-volt-large Or one of our PC maintenance toolkits here: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gamersnexus-tear-down-toolkit WATCH PART 1, DISCOVERING THE ISSUE: ua-cam.com/video/2fnXsmXzphI/v-deo.html WATCH PART 2, IT GETS WORSE: ua-cam.com/video/CL-eB_Bv5Ik/v-deo.html WATCH PART 3, NEWEGG RESPONDS: ua-cam.com/video/-wECJJveifw/v-deo.html Full Newegg Saga playlist: Full Newegg Saga playlist: ua-cam.com/video/2fnXsmXzphI/v-deo.html&list=PLsuVSmND84QtAQc1-VjA5gT5v6ugM1gdZ
He may have been alone in the room but he had hundreds or thousands of marginalized consumers behind him in writing. The reveal that that binder was 1/4 of what he had prepared was such a holy shit moment. Like yeah try and downplay the frequency of the issue now. So he was backed by all the abused consumers and the rest of his many fans, but you're right he still had to sit in a room solo with a bunch of suits whose job it is to deflect and do damage control and try and keep them nailed down and focused on what they were actually going to DO about the issue and not just let them blather on endlessly about vague policies with no concrete commitments to actually doing anything.
Umm, no. He's not alone. He's just the only one with the social followers to push back. People can always vote with their wallet. If you stupid sheeple would stop buying products from Newegg, and let it hurt their bottom line. I haven't bought anything from them in ten years. Can you say the same?
eh, it's really a non-issue tbh. Just because one person has a bad RMA experience does not mean everyone does, I've RMA'ed about 5 products with Newegg, all went down smoothly. In this case, either new egg really tried to scam him (unlikely) or just some unfortunate circumstances lead to the this situation (the product being open-box + RMA return department being stooges) ... Majority of the time, it will be fine. executives have nothing to do with daily operations, they just do paperwork and logistics, the real people in the wrong are the Returns department that tried to lie to cover themselves up. I don't see any cause for concern in daily operations of Newegg, it's not like every single package is denied RMA, in-fact statistically it's around a 90% approval rate. The other 10% being clearly non-RMA cases. Maybe 1% of RMA denials are actually newegg being stupid.
As both sides agreed in the video, even if it's 1% you're still talking about a massive fuckload of people having an utterly unacceptable horrendous experience. Hope your Newegg stock didn't get hit too hard obvious shareholder and you can still afford your new yacht this year.
@@benjamingavrilis71 I think you may be the exception and not the rule for the current state of Newegg. Years ago, I would have agreed with you, but the more recent years, not so much. The executive suite so to speak seems to be packed with individuals that haven't succeeded in previous ventures. If anything, seeing the corporate side left me with even less respect for them as a company, and they've become a wholesaler. Might as well just gamble on parts from Wish when you compare their input and responses.
Despite how we felt about Newegg, it doesn't stop us from feeling some empathy for his position. That's a tough spot to be without anyone more experienced for guidance.
Right? As soon as he said how long he had been there I was thinking how sorry I felt for him and how this is his trial by fire, but I bet this will look good on him in the long run on how he handled it.
@@mromutt I felt bad for a few of these guys with so little time at the job. Luckily most had years of experience in the field but yeah a month or two at a new position is rough when this type of situation occurs. The good thing is that he has the chance to make a big difference in how this whole situation turns out.
The fact that 3 out of 4 of them have less than a year at the company even though they are high ranking high payed positions tells you a lot about the company.
"The reason this video is long is because we didn't want to make any cuts in the interview so that neither party questions the outcome of the video." The commitment to integrity is terrific.
@@mrblurleighton it is normal for interviewers to cut down parts of the interview for time. But in this case Steve is trying to be transparent about the entire interview. That way newegg cant come out and say, “hey! You took out some of our great talking points!”. Also that way steve doesnt come out looking like he cut bits and pieces out to make newegg look good/bad. He left it all in unedited so we (the viewers) can form our own opinions since all of the footage is included. Plus it probably helps him out from a liability standpoint if newegg didnt quite like the edit and it helps save him from litigation (lawsuits). If you want to make a video with corporate people that video has to go through their legal team and a bunch of other places before you can even post it. This way he doesnt have to do that since everything that was captured is truly what happened.
@@vohnyf I was simply defending GamersNexus because @TheBanjoShow claims that they did nothing special by making the interview uncut. I understand and appreciate their decision. 😎
Newegg should embrace what gamers nexus is trying to do. This isn't about an RMA product anymore. Those numbers are scary and Newegg is actually at risk of succumbing to Amazon. Gamers Nexus has evolved professionally and independently at an alarming rate in this industry, and is more than capable of giving Newegg some serious help. This channel has evolved into a full scale company that is more than adequate for the task.
Look at that fat stack of vetted emails. That would make any VP wish they were wearing the brown pants. There is a systemic issue there and I think this brought it to the full attention of people with the titles to make an change. But these people are new to the company it seems so maybe an issue of reverse culture clash after the merge and being a bit to late to fixing the issue.
just hope that newegg is not blind to what GN is trying to do. GN is not trying to bring down Newegg but to bring it to a better position by telling them "hey, you fuck up. now fix it". publicly traded companies dont listen to employees concern regarding policies but will act only when their name is tarnish. that is the sad thing.
@@muzallisam5068 this is not true. There are many publicly traded companies that listen to their employees. Newegg has been going through loads of corporate changes this is the source of their problem. They dont seem to be unified.
@@Marin3r101 It's important to remember that Newegg was sold to Chinese investors some years back. It's literally not the same Newegg that everyone remembers from "back in the day" All those new people are there specifically to ensure the Chinese investors get their money back. Previously Newegg wasn't really making money at all which is why they got sold in the first place.
Honestly, I'm not sure any of Newegg's staff present at this meeting really knows how the company operates. I've seen this happen before. People get invited to a meeting based upon rank, not because they can actually answer questions.
Fun fact: Most execs in big corps like that _actually don't_ understand how their company actually works. ... actually works as in the part that actually does work, not what legalese they use to screw over customers.
I get BS vibes from the guy at the end of the table. Newbie next to Steve sounds a little corporate wordy but otherwise genuine and same for the other two in my opinion.
@@ashkebora7262 This is a big deal in almost every industry because we have so many people hired as "customer service" who just are not empowered to do shit. Years of experience may get you hired and salaried but your value to the company has nothing to do with experience or output, you just need to have your butt is in the chair so the company can say they're doing everything they're supposed to be doing to the shareholders that control most of their profits. It's theatre. They do not care about individual customers. And they are not sorry for anything until they get caught and shareholders make them answer. NEVER assume they are being NICE GUYS to you and striking you a GOOD DEAL. NEVER convince yourself that you are being catered to.
I worked with Vincent at Newegg in 2018. We worked at the customer service department together. As I recall there was very poor leadership at the time but Vincent was always carrying the team in spite of our colleague's failings. I'm glad he is in more of a leadership position now.
that one good leader in a company is sometimes the link holding everything together. and alot and maybe even most companies go after that good leader and do everything to pin all the bad things on that one person. and its very sad. the place i work at now is absolute garbage. Iv tried to get everyone here to understand that it dont have to be like this. I worked at a mcdonolds 3 differnt times the first time it was a good place not bad the second time i was the assisent manager or what mcds calls the people manager. and I had my people actually loving to come to work sometimes even more than having days off work because i would have adults calling on their days off saying can i come in to work its fun and im at home and i just want to go in to work because i feel like a member of the team and a member of the family. and not being there i feel like something is missing. I also had teenagers 15-16 yr olds trying to come in to work by skipping school and calling in and asking to come in to work. I did not let that happen obviously. and the final time there it was terrible to be there. point being is that that place was the same place doing the same thing and the only diffrance was the leaders where terrible.
@@bobthompson4319 You are kinda describing a socialism bubble struggling to prevail in capitalism. In socialism there is no alienation in purpose due to being a servant for the oligarchy but a sense of purpose through benefitting the community. That can be immensely empowering. (And that's why it is usually stomped quickly.) - It is a really ancient theme of human woe that the ruling elite tries to keep the rabble down, so to speak. That's why there is such a profound emphasis of class war in socialism. Rich vs. poor is at the root of it all. (Although you can go deeper and eventually the basic duality is love vs. fear.)
@@deucedeucerims In the most original sense of the word it is a system that prioritizes the well-being of society as a whole. We can do the same with capitalism, which is a system that prioritizes the amassment of material wealth.
The part where you resist turning off the camera during your walk in is assertiveness in the face of perceived authority. This is the type of thing that should be taught to anyone who wants to become a journalist: how not to fold to someone's attempts to control an interview.
It‘s definitely a security and/or insurance measure. They don‘t want to have a video online, where everybody can see their security cameras and other security systems. If someone breaks inside this building, steals or destroys documents or equipment or harms any employees, the insurance company could without any doubt reject paying any money, because of NewEgg breached simple security measurements.
@@paralytaatylarap9715 And that's reasonable. But they wanted NO RECORDING except in the interview. GN kept the camera rolling with audio. This way, they honor the reasonable security issue while not compromising the integrity of the report.
@@Eremal I think it's even more ethical to tell the person you're interviewing that you will not stop recording but that you will keep the camera from recording footage that is not pertinent to story. This way there is no deception. GN did the most ethical thing.
@@paralytaatylarap9715 if someone was really trying to break into a corporate hq, they would need more than a UA-cam video. The easiest route is social engineering. Worrying about someone filming walking in is paranoia. Real life ain't Oceans 11 🤣
Yeah struck me. Clearly the previous ones *knew* something was wrong, likely refusing to do anything about it because it made their metrics look good so got the house cleaned
@@Firecracker048It's so funny to hear the way these executives speak. I work in the medical field and its hilarious to hear the buzzwords and strategy BULLSHIT. These execs are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. :) BULLSHITTING PAYS! It really does so anyone reading this and wants to make money just become that gray man.
and also not to be overlooked that these were lowercase "E" "execs" in that - they're glorified salesmen that are meant to sell the product of "the company". Your point, and every counterpoint to their non-answers is shown in their buisness-man-ship
@@alexpseudonym5735last minute hires from within so that there's someone at the wheel, because it's probably still better than just hoping the final 1/4th don't jet too
Thank you for fighting back for consumer rights, and for pushing one of our favorite online retailers in the right direction. Hopefully these executives stop pandering in their meetings, and actually make decisive action to *properly* fix the mistakes they have made.
I agree, they should have had that meeting down in the lunch room at the Return center, with the employees there.. real feed back . Like some undercover boss..
What GN done was excellent. More popular YT's that deal with gaming/tech should follow GN example and not just for North America but Europe as well. Well done Steve👍
@@sypratePrivate To me, Vince seemed like he was giving the most watered down corporate speak that had more life than Terry Cox's corporate speak, but significantly more shallow.
Some notes: Honestly the customer experience would be improved dramatically if the marketplace was eliminated. I shop at Newegg for Newegg. Same goes for Amazon. The websites were better before third parties could sell on the platform. I want a focused, curated selection of products and not random aliexpress rubbish. Everything for sale should be worth buying for some purpose. There is far too much shovelware on Newegg and Amazon. They touched upon why Steve's RMA was denied, but I'd like to know why Steve's board even ended up for sale. Why was it on location at all? They declined to fix the bent pins from Gigabyte. It shouldn't have been in a sales area at any point when Gigabyte sent it back - it should have gone straight to an e-waste pile.
I have never liked the marketplace concept but for unimportant, inexpensive items. I want to order as much as possible from one seller and one that has a reputation I can feel secure in. I also prefer having that relationship where when some crazy unbelievable scenario occurs where I need a replacement or refund it will happen, basically no questions asked. completely agreed edit - yes I'm willing to pay more for that because it's worth it, it's overall better value.
That is the reason I have never shopped at Newegg. The Marketplace sellers are trash. If they let trash into their website then their standards of partners are extremely low.
I don't even have the words to describe the integrity of GN. And wow the courage too. For two reasons - first it has to be intimidating to sit down in front of four execs! and second you're representing so many of us, and you represented us amazingly. Respect. I didn't even feel like the Newegg guys were thaaaaatt bad. They just never met a man like Steve before, that refused to back down at any point.
Only 21 minutes in, but it seemed like New Egg was thinking they could make this all about the one incident GN had, but Steve made sure the conversation shifted to the real issues. Working at a boring insurance company as a dev, it is always fun to see PR and management squirm. Edit: seeing that VP wince when Steve said KPI for the first time was great.
KPI comment at 26:03 for anyone wanting to watch the squirm. I listened to the whole thing instead of watching it, had to go look for it after seeing your comment. Edit: I see someone already beat me to it lol.
I winced at 7:40 and 7:50. My face was totally doing the "press X to Doubt" face I think Steve manage to avoid showing that "face" to the reps, thanks to the face mask.
"If you didn't like your experience you should ask to speak to a manager." WE TRY. In my experiences, the customer service reps refuse to let us speak to managers or supervisors. They will use every excuse in the book to make sure you don't get to talk to a manager. They would rather your issue go unresolved or be handled incorrectly than to escalate your call to a supervisor. Newegg Customer Support is what drove me away from purchasing from them all together. The business my family owns and operates have spent tens of thousands of dollars with Newegg since 2009 but we stopped in 2019 due to how awful their customer support has become.
I have worked for a few companies as customer service/tech support. we do send this info, agents do care for customers, but sometimes management doesn’t care until it bites back or legally they have the obligation, don’t be a d!ck to customer service we sometimes feel bad to not helping you. I have advice customers to request refunds to bank, do other processes that will fix their issue but sometimes managers, supervisors and “QA” doesn’t like that because it isn’t cost effective to the company even tho its companies fault.
A huge reason why that is a thing is because so many people want to speak to a manger for a minuscule reason to the point that managers don't want escalations unless necessary. This can only improve if people can just understand the word no and move on for most cases. Example: "Can I get a discount? No? Your manager will give me one, escalate me to them." that has happened over 100 times across multiple companies I have worked with. Or, a lot of the times, an agent is completely able to handle something but, the customer doesn't like waiting, etc. People love to waste everyone's times. 9/10 if they say they won't escalate you, it's because they already know what the manager will say OR the manager is aware of your situation and already gave the agent their answer. Of course, the 1/10 is legit and when that does happen, it's the absolute worst. But that 9/10 ruined it for everyone else.
@@jahyralvarado676 Oh, I feel your pain. Fortunately mostly by transmission but unfortunately a little by sympathy. There is good QA and bad QA. Good QA is transformative and makes your job great; you on the front line should become invincible by it. Bad QA will sink a business in no time. I hope someday you get to experience good QA.
I think it's really telling that most of the people at the table have had their positions for less than 6 months. I work for a company that is in similar straits and let me tell you, if they're having trouble keeping seasoned employees at the top, you can bet the turnover rate of their regular employees is incredibly bad.
It could also be an issue with the low profit from PC components. This usually leads to low salary for employees and that contributes alot to turnover. I had jobs in the past where the pay was adequate for what it was asked of me but when trying to to my job I had lots of blockers which contributed to stress and not being happy with the pay vs effort required. My team started with 40 people and in 2 years we only had about 7 left. And out of those 7, 6 stayed for that long (me included) because of promotions to better roles with higher pay. I ultimately left during my 5th year because management was the core issue and I got to report directly to them. Once I saw that the grievances could not be resolved without a fundamental shift (and maybe the demotion/firing of the poorly performing managers) I just left.
This is likely the true root of the problem. Too much turnover tends to make rules rapidly change making enforcement frustrating. New blood at the exec level tends to make floor management stressed because the new blood gets fire-happy when they think they know what the problem and it forces management to force the boots-on-ground to churn out better performance. If it keeps up, the whole company could become destabilized.
Look at LinkedIn many people now rotate new jobs every two years it's the fastest way to climb the ladder. Work one position as plant manager 65k annual 2yrs, another company will promote you to regional plant manager 85k annual work 2yrs, global plant manager... etc.. people learned loyalty and annual 2% raise is trash and they've marketed themselves and made themselves valuable. If you don't believe once again go to LinkedIn and look at all high ranking corporate members. They went from 15yrs at one place in early 90s-2000s to now moving a lot
@@wowitsruss It is an interesting phenomenon that has changed over my lifetime. It used to be that when you apprenticed into production and then management you were essentially set for life if you simply showed up and did a good job. Now it seems like people are expendable and the incentive is not to do a good job but to get the best deal. Priorities culturally seem wrong. It should be the goal to do the best job you can and exceed expectations; the money will come for the honest labor and love. Maybe I'm old fashioned.
This is so wild, I haven’t ordered from Newegg in years, I’m not into gaming or high-end PC building, but I stumbled on this series and ended up watching all your videos on it simply because of the quality journalism. You don’t have to be a PC enthusiast to appreciate the level of work and integrity that went into this. Well done.
Just like you, NewEgg was the go-to-place years ago. My first EVGA cards were from NewEgg. My current computer is seven years old and I'm just getting into gear to build a new system, and i stumbled upon this channel. Which is great BTW
Be very careful when watching. I too was not interested at all at high end computer building, but watched GN on and off for a year or two, because I respect the journalism. But now I find myself ordering motherboards and CPUs and air flow cases online and building my first computer! Parts in the mail as I speak. GN is a gateway drug!!
Rather concerning that most of these executives have only been around for a few months. Definitely agree with Andrew in that they were more concerned about damage control than actually resolving the systemic issues.
If 3 out of 4 executives are here for less then a month, how long did the previous guys last? If there is a revolving door of management that's a big red flag for a company
If they were able to address the issues, they would have. I expect them to do a wave of fixing problems for people who email them today, but once this dies down, they will go back to ignoring problems. You can even see the mentality that got them into this position. They kept talking way too much about the customer's purchase history or return history as a justification for denying or allowing a return. This is exactly what caused all of their existing problems and they don't seem to acknowledge it at all. They allow support techs to deny returns based on customer purchase and return history, opinions are not how returns should work. That is massively absurd. If they allow a customer to purchase, they must accept the returns. The decision to accept any returns happens when you allow a purchase. If they dislike a customer for returning too much, they are free to ban the customer from future purchases while still handling returns on existing purchases within the return window. They don't seem to get it, but it is a scam when you sell the product knowing you may not honor the return policy depending on the opinion of a support tech and if that random tech personally feels it is reasonable to allow a return or not.
I don't see the point of this video. Newegg has been a garbage company for nearly a decade now. Flying out to talk to a bunch of executives whose job is to protect the company image isn't going to change a single thing. Steve is trying to give a chance to a company that has had numerous chances and is known to be trash.
If ppl there are new to their Jobs its likely that the old ppl who worked before them got fired or just said nope to their (maybe new) Methods. Or rather its unlikely those Guys got the Job recently because they did such a great Job… when there is obviously Things going on that have NOT been ok recently… So something is off. Whatever actually it is… again, something is off.
I just wish Newegg would have said something like "This issue was caused by one of our KPIs pushing employees to harm customers to keep their jobs. The KPI was to keep their RMA count low, when it should have been about accuracy. We've changed that to random RMA reviews, rather than raw RMA numbers, and we've also looked at our other KPIs and made changes where necessary to prevent things like this from happening in the future." So many executives and high level managers push for the wrong KPIs. They want to see a low number, so they push employees to make that number lower when it's not their responsibility or pay grade to. And then things like this happen.
Yeap, bingo. As far as I can tell, most corporations work just like this. They settled on a KPI they want to see and do not care about the value of the work that it takes to get there.
Boom, exactly. That's exactly the issue and what should have been said but they danced around the issue the entire time and nothing of honesty in that regard was ever said. Your comment is awesome and I hope more people see this.
Yes. Exactly. This concerned me too. Especially when it was brought up that the employees on the ground had their own home-brew set of procedures, and Newegg management was unwilling to address the issues this represents, nor make any definitive commentary on how they would actually resolve that.
Holy shit. Props for not backing down to them during the meeting. I follow a lot of car reviewers who talk a big game about whichever car manufacturer is having an issue and as soon as they meet with their rep, they just not along with a shit-eating grin. Seriously, this is top tier content.
Problem with car reviewers is they dont want for the manufacture to stop sending them press cars for reviews. Its easier to buy a 2000 dollars 4090 than a 80k bmw
Steve, you earned my respect, most people with a platform never do this stuff for their viewers. You spent your money to fly to California, to change a company to help your viewers. I think i will buy a coaster or a mod mat. Thank You
Well, to be honest, drama is the best content a YT channel can wish for. It brings in headlines, viewers (like myself, I didn't watch this channel before this), popularity and it doesn't really cost that much. If Newegg works hard and fixes everything, it's a win for GN (to force a company to be good), if they don't it's still a win for GN, more videos and stuff.
@@asbestosfibers1325 that’s true but they still had to cut there business trip short to go to the Newegg headquarters and bought a plane ticket to Southern California from Northern California.
"If you didn't like your experience you should ask to speak to a manager" Have they ever tried to speak to a manager? They specifically train their teams on the phones to make it frustrating.
In my mind's eye I visualized Steve launch across the table and throttle the ignorant MFer who said that. THAT statement absolutely revealed the severity of the disconnect between those responsible for the system (the Mgrs) and the actual system itself. How completely typical.
Story from an order I made with Amazon. I once ordered a gaming mouse. MSRP $89.99 and was on sale for $49.99. So I ordered one. I recieved four of them. I called Amazon support and told them "Hey, I checked my bank statements and my receipt. I ordered 1 mouse, paid the $49.99 and would like to return the other three mice." they more or less told me "It's December. Enjoy a Christmas present." and left me with three extra mice. I gave one to my dad, one to my sister, and kept a spare for myself.
i had an identical experience with staples where i ordered some basic ass acer laptop (or dell laptop, i forget) for schoolwork since i was starting college through their home delivery service since they didn't have any left in stock, and they ended up mailing me one of the top of the line (at the time) multimedia HP laptops instead and an alienware desktop (but with no monitor or keyboard). I filed no complaints.
@@TinariKao never had this luck last time I ordered some Philips shp9500s they got lost in shipping according to Amazon so they send me another pair, and somehow eventually I got the other pair of 9500s but amazon automatically charged me again when I contacted them about it they told me to return the 2nd pair. This was around Christmas time too was a present for myself only to find that I got trolled by amazon because I got them super late and got charged for both.
The interactions between more experienced and younger members of the Newegg team was interesting. Two of the execs wanted the final word, but both had very different approaches and wanted to handle things differently ("follow up with me..." "no, follow up with me"). The returns guy was more direct, but the customer service hotshot kept trying to have the last word even though he was somewhat implicated in the larger issues (since CS makes the final RMA decisions). And the rapid exec turnover at the company suggests a deeper issue with the internal company culture (or lack of the consistent, customer- first culture that used to be the case). These people seem as if they had never met before...
I got that sense too regarding the leadership. The lack of continuity of leadership could certainly have a direct impact on some of these issues. That was the first thing that struck me, just how green all of these Executives were to their positions and even to Newegg itself. Right off the bat, that did not instill me with a lot of confidence with how the conversation was going to go.
The VPs are execs, the directors are middle managers. The VPs are peers, the directors will report either directly to them or through another group leader. VPs are useless as they are far divorced from the actual products and processes and more focused on profit and loss. They task others to clean up areas where they are losing money, completely ignorant to the actual issue or cause. VPs propose a vision and make other figure it out, that's it. They blame others when it fails, too. The directors have a bit input to actual operations, but still pass everything through middle managers. The directors will get the group together to try to solve an issue, but are still pretty isolated from the real work. PR...... No one likes PR. They are all fake.
I think you nailed it. This seemed like 4 different agendas sitting in a room, trying not to get stuck with a hot potato of blame for the multiple fuck ups that occurred. Also, it's irritating as hell for that ops guy to keep saying 'this only happens in a small number of cases.' MFer, if your car's engine randomly exploded and the manufacturer said 'we had no malice, this just happens in a small number of cases,' you would be pissed. Same thing here.
The fake corporate-speak is really bugging me. Steve asked why people should shop at Newegg and the customer service guy gives a long-winded overview of policies they've enacted, but clearly haven't worked well for customers. He didn't answer the question and just talked for long enough that he hoped you'd forget what was asked. I have to deal with this type of speech all the time and it's frustrating because you know if they just spoke candidly you'd have an answer in 1/3 the time and would likely have a better understanding. You might not like the answer itself, but I'd rather have the info than be led around by the nose.
@@XenithflareGaming This is the old school way of talking in the business world, as the new generation comes in, this cooperate lingo should go away. Consumers now are forcing the hands of companies for more transparency and to be more direct. Gamers Nexus having this meeting uploaded to UA-cam is a HUGE step in the right direction!
Incredible video. Just found this content, yep, you guessed it. Had a shipping issue with them due to receiving an RMA, open box item as new. Old RMA label was on the box, arrived at my local distribution center just to be turned around because RMA label was scanned. Product went back to NewEgg now awaiting reshipment. Process is long, customer service smiles and says wait, while asking numerous times if I want to cancel the order. Of course I don’t want the order cancelled, I’d just like my purchased product to arrive in a timely manner, not three weeks later. Just shows not much has changed.
I'm only 4minutes into the video but I'm super grateful in a world where it's difficult to trust media outlets, Gamer's Nexus goes above and beyond to show transparency. You didn't have to do what you did, but you did it to prove you always should. Thanks my dudes keep it up!
I dunno, I have mixed opinions about this. On the one hand, it's good that a corporation is willing to kick out problematic executives instead of protecting, coddling, and promoting them like Activision-Blizzard, Ubisoft, Quantic Dream, etc.. But on the other hand, it's alarming to deal with a bunch of people sent to deal with the problem where their most helpful answer is, "I don't know if I can do anything for you because I don't know how this works."
As someone that has worked in customer support, seeing a bunch of new faces like this means that all of their previous staff was driven out by the new management at Newegg.
VP is a simple title. There are still 2-3 individuals above them in a typical corporate structure. VPs and Directors move around a lot and hop from company to company, sometimes almost as much as a normal person would.
Indeed, but I'm sure Steve would be the first to say to watch several channels and never rely on only one. Thou canst have other gods than Tech Jesus ;).
How do you know they're telling you the truth? Conflict and mistakes is what these guys run on. This is gold for them, made up issue or not. They're going to lie to you like anyone else would.
Even I was nervous watching this. This is true reality TV. And I'm surprised how well this turned out. It's inspiring to see a relatively-small UA-cam channel make such a positive change.
Why? With everything that happened, gn had the upper hand, to say the least. If I were either of those 4 guys I would have been SWEATING, trembling in my pants coming into this, and you can feel it. Steve had 0 reason to be nervous. He had nothing to lose. Newegg did.
Yeah, totally. It was a sign of things to come. I honestly felt like I heard nothing but corporate rhetoric from these guys - which is what they are trained in, and what they were hired for. In short companies do poorly in customer service when they hire corporate types who are corporation focussed, rather than customer focussed. It's why start ups are usually so much better, then they reach a certain size and start to change. Once they're listed on the stock exchange, it's all over for customer service, unless their entire business model revolves around ratings and independent sellers like Amazon. eBay etc.
It was lol, I'm in corporate so it's all too familiar. Creating or shifting away framing is business as usual (BAU), most don't even realize they do it, it's just the culture of cover-your-ass (CYA) and blame displacement. There was a lot of insincere "yes we made a mistake" speeches too, but the real essence is, corporates struggle with trying to fix anything, there is too much politics, conflicting agendas and self-interest. Most of my life I was in startups, so when I first joined a corporate I thought I was gonna kill myself. But you can just not accept the bullshit and I do interrupt people a whole lot to make them get to the point and be accountable for their defined role, which btw, makes you the 'bad guy' :P
Steve is such an absolute undisputed OG. I couldn't hold my ground this hard while also being polite. I don't know many people who could, if anyone at all.
1 hour and 13 minutes of pure corporate drivel and damage control. Not that I blame the guys Newegg sent to the slaughter - looks like every single one of them is either a new hire or only just recently appointed to their current position. Doesn't really look good for Newegg when your entire "senior VP" team are essentially brand new. Looks to me like Newegg is a rotating door for staff. At this point I really do think Newegg is just putting up with GN's crusade because it's currently a hot topic. Give it a few weeks/months until it dies down, and they won't care. They even tried to go back on their word to Steve when they initially said GN could record the entire interview, but then 24 hours later changed their minds? Like, really? You're going to publicly contradict yourself like that? What an absolute shambles. I hope Newegg can pull through this and improve, but it's really not looking good at this point.
I dunno - there was some PR speak, sure, but also some surprising specifics! The fact that the person who accepts / rejects the RMA does so based on 9 form-based yes-or-no answers about the item from the person at the warehouse was both enlightening and horrifying. I can't imaging how you could expect to get a good outcome out of that.
They are all VPs though. Their times at the company are: 6 months. 3 years. 1 month (but 20 years experience). 19 years. I dunno. Doesn't seem strange to me. Lots of big companies rotate executives to constantly try to become more effective.
I disagree about the statement newegg sent newhires to the slaughter yea definitely corporate speech, but what else would you expect? damage control is the exact things they need to do rn the stuff are all high ranking VPs. corporates at the size of newegg have constant rotation of those positions. people don't tend to be vp of customer service for too long
Thing is though, there's nothing they can really do in the short term to prove anything. Regardless of what they said or did, they'd have kept this reputation. I don't disagree that they definitely tried to pull some shady stuff with the walking back of the interview policies, but at the same time, the only way for them to prove themselves to anyone without the cynicism kicking into overdrive at this point is for them to prove themselves over time.
Yep both Newegg and TD are China-owned now. Which is fine if their quality was consistent, but its not. What other options are there besides Amazon in 2024?
@@ChairmanMeow1 The fact that they're a Chinese company has nothing to do with the level of quality and customer service. Plenty of American companies, and companies from any country end up having these issues, especially once they grow large enough and focus more on short term profits than long term customer retention. Because that's really what the issue was at the end of the day - their policies conflicting with the specific duties of each employee meeting quotas. The more returns accepted and/or the fewer RMAs processed each day means less profit for the company. Dealing with this backlog and issuing refunds did cut into Newegg's profits but they were forced to do it once it got exposed or they would face even greater losses in profit. Welcome to Capitalism. It's all about maximizing profit in whatever way you can.
I esp. love the part at the beginning ( 5:02): "It's really not fair to just attack without giving the opportunity to improve, because then there's never any incentive for the subject, even though it screwed up, to improve." - definitely not enough of this attitude in the world today. Pretty good interview- thanks for being a consumer advocate and continuing to push the industry to get better!
Definitely an odd thing to say. The opportunity to improve occurred many times in the past. Sometimes a slap to the face is required in order to wake up.
I find the opportunity for honest businesses to replace the scummy ones much more valuable. There is no reason why Newegg should get extra leniency that denies other businesses a chance to win the customers they mistreated.
@@christophersavignon4191 Newegg is too big to be replaced overnight. Like Steve said, if Newegg falls most people will be stuck with Amazon, not a batch of new, honest businesses.
@@Cuuniyevo Nobody is talking about replacing it overnight. And no, there are other competitors, just not amazon-sized ones. Nobody is stuck with them either way.
50:10 At the company I work at, we have a policy that if we're going to tell a customer "no" to something, the person delivering the message to the customer also has to be a person with the authority to say "yes."
That is a good policy. Hopefully there are enough people with that authority, a lot of companies have a problem with too much red tape, and issues needing approval having to crawl their way to the top of the ladder.
@@COMMANDandConquer199 We just don't have a lot of barriers or red tape to get to those people. A front line person can just pick up the phone and call the necessary person or shoot them an email and get a prompt response.
I kind of rolled my eyes when out of the 4 dudes 3 were pretty much barely a few months and years with the company...That just screams insane turnover rates. Probably the root of the problem. Once they realize it's a sinking ship everyone jumps...
That's the first and only thing I got out of their introduction. And it usually indicates a range of things, which would indirectly explain Steve's issue.
My impression as well. They are new, don't have the real connection/touch yet with what's going on below deck and they have to own and clean up bullshit some previous guy left for them.
Yes, BUT new guys aren't the ones who created the current process. A mess like this takes years to create. Well intentioned KPI's often drive unwanted behaviours. These guys have the PERFECT opportunity to do a top-down/bottom up review and changes. If it cant/doesn't get fixed now (and this will take 3-6 months easily) - then I'll have no hope for them
What Steve did here, companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to get from consultants and most of the time it's just a spreadsheet. This is pure gold for any company looking to improve customer support and they got it for free. Crazy
They didn't get it for free. They paid the price of their reputation which was severely damaged during this whole ordeal. However the best thing for Newegg to do now is to take this advice to heart and come out the other side a better company.
In this situation that's like saying "Hey look, you have a solid gold hand!" after they sliced off said hand due to their own incompetence. I really hope Newegg improves after this. My opinion is leadership in the RMA department has been left to do what they want for far too long. Execs never paid much attention other than it wasn't a complete black hole financially.
As an "exec", who grew up through the ranks, I HATE dithering Corp Speak (I literally found myself autonomically wincing & looking away at times). "Please tell me how we can EXCEED EXPECTATIONS so I can KEEP THAT ON MY RADAR"... I mean, I get he was new and super nervous, but that (and sooo many other phrases) is a sign that their leadership (c-suite) is prioritizing hiring leaders who 'talk executive pretty'. Not one of them said "I've gone down and worked the RMA return line this week to really get a sense of how the folks are doing, how the processes are working, and how I can best help them". Poor leaders act as if "we wrote a process, why dont they (worker bees) just follow it?!". The reasons, overwhelmingly are always 1.) Manager and workers aren't connected as humans trying to help each other, org charts/power matter more than clarity, feedback, and getting to a shared understanding 2.) Management has no idea what the real "at the coal face" struggles are (but firmly believe they do... in reality they just know how it effects their usually fabricated kpis) 3.) People have lost the plot on WHY they're all there. Its not to please some boss or shareholder, its not to "meet a kpi". It should ideally be that they can earn a decent living WHILE contributing to something they care a lot about. The company needs to provide a service to the world that they passionately believe people want/need. Leaderships job is to gain clairty, build a supportable consensus, and remove friction/burden from the folks that actually do the work. I'm not trying to vilify any of the leaders in that room. Unfortunately corporate culture breeds those behaviors. Incentives drive behaviors. I'll say this, I've ordered tens of thousands of dollars from Newegg over 20+ years. I strongly want there to be healthy small(er) competitors to Amazon. I think I'm so pissed about this because I used to love that company. I really truly hope they have made a lot of progress. But I'm afraid from that video that they are the fish in the fish bowl and they don't see it. Nice work Steve, that had to be super hard and uncomfortable.
This sounded like a bunch of corporate level executives patting themselves on the back for a meeting with their "valued customers " Steve you carried yourself very well through this, and you didn't allow them to blow you over with canned corporate responses. We all appreciate everything you do. Looking forward to see what comes of this.
You're never going to meet with a room of execs and get 'straight talk'. I'm nothing near C-Suite, but I work with these types of folks in my own job every day. Especially on camera, especially knowing it's going to be released, there was actually a refreshing amount of honesty from the people in this room. I still think Newegg is trash in 2022, but I'll keep an eye out to see if they actually implement improvements here.
I appreciate that you quickly hit the probable nail on the head. There's no point having excellent processes, if there's insufficient time allowed to properly execute those processes by the staff on the shop floor. I've experienced this consistently in organisations (the bigger they are, the worse this is). Middle managers who're simply there to punch down, whilst brown nosing the upper management, rather than taking the criticisms from the shop floor and hitting the upper managers with them, so that resolutions can be sought and implemented. There seems to be a culture of "I don't want to hear problems, just do what I'm telling you", which doesn't make the problems non existent, just turns them into ninja issues that'll strike when you're down and kill with a thousand cuts.
@@3gg23 Indeed, it's most evident when decision makers/strategists are disconnected from the shop floor and simply use the numbers and intuition based on reports (written by people who need to look good for bonuses/promotions/job security (lol)). They see the work's being completed despite staff cutbacks and increased market share, without seeing that the staff are stretched thin on normal days, forgetting that busy days means over-extention and therefore mistakes - which are what the customers remember and tell others about. Of course, this just focuses on the negatives for the business from severe stress, what's worse is the cost to the human lives that stress causes, thus we see higher rates of anxiety, depression, suicide and domestic abuse in countries where these practices are the norm rather than exception.
@@weebjesus6077 why because it s a PR stunt allowing the company to explain /reedem itself toward their customer base ,as well as free counseling on how to establish a proper customer support service you d be surprised how expensive the simplest things can be for a company when they lack an enlightened management ! recently switched job and i was stunned how grossly managed the company was ,boss was open to my suggestion profit went up 8 % in 6 months ,customers satisfaction went up 17 % !
Hey Steve! Really hope we get an update, seems like this is still a problem people are having. It's been a year now, maybe it's time? Incredible work, by the way.
They probably realized that it's pointless making a fuss about it because the bad publicity only improves their metrics anyway, and NewEgg will just put their politician hats on again whenever you talk to them. Just stop buying from NewEgg. I haven't bought from there in like 5 years and I'm doing fine.
Takes serious cajones to rip these guys apart then go sit in a room with their executive team afterward & calmly explain why they deserved it. Class act, GN. Keep doing this kinda stuff it's cool.
@@carletonrutherford1799 "6 months", "1 month".. How are these people at such high positions in the company when they don't have experience WITHIN the company? like holy shit lmao they have 'experience' but it sure as hell isn't with the company they're currently working
@@normified This is normal in most companies I have worked once they get above a certain size. Places think that if you have been a supervisor at a business you can be a supervisor/manager in a completely unrelated field. Same with if they see a college degree in many cases even if unrelated to the job they believe that to be a qualification over someone with real life experience in that field. Then you have a BIG BIG problem with nepotism.
That 4v1 would have been so difficult, I've been in a similar situation with executives of a larger company. It is very difficult to keep your composure in these situations.
He did pretty good for being in the spotlight like that tbh. You can hear that he's a little nervous and hesitant with some of his talking points but he still gets his point across well and was pretty direct with the execs.
The fact that you were able to facilitate this at all is insane, let alone how far you were able to take it and how transparent you've been. You've taken on and stood your own against a multi-billion dollar corporation and wasn't intimidated by their obvious attempt to bulldog you with their pile of CEOs/directors. You're an inspiration!
I didn't get that impression at all (the bulldog attempt). There was a clear lack of bravado or any other intimidation tactic. I think it was a decent mix of people from the relevant departments. That said, it still takes a significant amount of guts to challenge a company MUCH larger than yourself! You should still be inspired!!!
Haha, newegg, a mult-BILLION dollar "corporation" - yeah, that's funny - they're so big and great, half these people here have been there for a month or a couple of months. Sure sign of a BS company that's in severe damage control mode even before this whole fiasco started - bring in a new bunch of scapegoats to take the fall
I’m completely blown away by this video. Genuinely hopeful for this hobby & the overall integrity of scientific reporting. It’s just so empowering to see someone come at a situation like this with an objective point of view, using data and keeping it fair for both sides. This is the one source I trust for PC building reviews and industry insights. Time after time again you’ve shown the full unbiased situation and used data to make a recommendation. Let’s hope NewEgg is able to see us (your viewers and likely old customers of NewEgg back in the day) and re focus its business to make those policies become actions. Just blown away, thanks for all the years of content. This hard work doesn’t go unnoticed.
"This whole thing comes across as Steve caring more about NewEgg's customers than NewEgg" - That's not really a high bar to surpass. That bar is so low a cockroach couldn't fit under it.
Let's be honest. A "normal" customer that doesn't have millions of followers WOULD NEVER get the opportunity to even talk to ANY of those execs. When you have this kind of following, they have to address things or their business would surely suffer. It's pretty sad that people have to go this route just for a business or organization to be like.. "Yea, we messed up."
Bro why would they waste their time on every random person who asks to see them? That's not their job, that's the PR departments job that's the entire reason PR departments exist. Executives are talking to Steve because there's really no other option, it would be disrespectful and a spit in the face to have Steve talk to some rando pr guy and nobody else
Steve, I’d be intimidated on this what you did, facing four top Newegg execs. is crazy. You have some balls, I never really watched GN content until the Intel benchmarking BS that you covered and went up on your own again and went to go and challenge them. As a consumer i really appreciated that a lot. Thanks for the teams effort at GN and yeah I’ve ordered a GN mouse pad from the store. Top content always!
I was nervous and really felt the pressure to do the right thing for the audience. I don't suspect this will happen often, but do think I'll get better with each incident. We spent a lot of time evaluating how we did so we can keep improving on these rare pieces. Thank you for the kind words!
I guess its true that drama brings in new subscribers but this is good drama that actually benefits us.ive watched GN for years cuz i believe this channel is more to the truth of products no bs when i need to know about computer parts and tech.i feel its more about truth and us instead if making money being bribed by companies from youtubers👍good job Steve and GN
"performed subpar, met expectations but those werent high." I feel like that sums up the entire situation perfectly both the interview and also all stuff previously.
This interview was throughoughly unconvincing for me, despite GN and Steve's best efforts here to give them a chance they really do seem to be blowing smoke up his ass.
it will be interesting to see if they DO have a follow up meet, I will give them the benefit of the doubt till then ( i cant use them coz i live in NZ)
There needs to be a sit down with the higher up on the food chain people. So these are new employees that are going to chucked under the bus by newegg. Pre-programmed ansers.
This is amazing Steve, it's also so awkward lol. I have these meetings all the time with execs that don't care about anything but making money and lie through their teeth to the public on terms of their company policy. Your constant pressuring the issues to keep them on point was so great. You make a great investigator
I have vendor selection influence over pretty high budgets and this interview did not convince me to delete Newegg from my blacklist. It was a good example of corporate diplomacy. Diplomats talk a lot but concessions are usually tiny and change little on the next day. They did not commit to anything because they don’t have the authority to do so. It is clear they were empowered to do very little. I heard direct legal statements mentioned. Newegg continues to fail to understand what the words “please don’t shop Newegg” mean to their revenue when said by GN’s subscribers. We don’t just buy for ourselves. We buy for major corporations as well. The COO needed to be in the room. This issue is above VP level. However, he will debrief the VP of Global Ops by proxy.
55:23 exactly! You did really great, Steve, swimming through all the "oh, we are sorry, we are gonna do better". And thank you for being so calm and not transforming this into some tabloid scandal.
At this point journalism like Steve's is the exception, so I get companies are used to basically dealing with yellow hacks. Steve's raising the bar on both sides of the aisle - company response & investigative journalism.
Props to the Newegg team for submitting themselves to the court of public opinion and judgement. No one is perfect, maybe this could be a turning point where Newegg slowly navigates the long road and becomes the standard for customer service? Why not.
the board members seemed pretty nervous, and a few were only recently put in their positions. i imagine they were scared for their positions and attempting the best PR talk they could muster i almost feel bad for them i dont envy having a 1v4 confrontation but NG pulled it off pretty well
you and the whole team at GN are legends, I felt nervous watching this, like I was going into a job interview lol. Thank you for making the tech space better.
I just want to say that you did fantastically as an interviewer. They were definitely trying to give you pr jargon and when you pushed back they seemed to recognize that they couldn't get away with that.
The biggest takeaway from this whole experience is Newegg only reacts when they are pinned against a wall. They cave to public pressure (or a lowering of their stock price) and in reality are not genuinely interested in supporting customers. Everything that has been changed/updated in their procedures is being done to mitigate damages. Let’s see what customer service looks like in a year.
@@lancemcque1459 I will have to wait and see how Newegg handles this in the long run. However, everything in life is a teachable moment and I’m not opposed to giving people second chances.
Yep. Damage control. I had the same issue with memory not what I ordered, and it took about 2 months to resolve, and in the meantime it was denied as wrong item returned. I even did an unboxing video like I do with anything over $20.
This is so frustrating to watch. I had been a customer of Newegg of thousands of orders before 2 years ago. I made a purchase of a $4k pc as a result of lack of RTX3090 access any other way. When it arrived, it was damaged in shipping. I spent 6 weeks trying to get me money back after the RMA was disallowed. They claimed they sent the machine back to me when the RMA was refused. They kept my money and the pc. This has been an issue for longer than two years. Clearly. **Edit: I know Newegg reads these comments. Execs, go look up my name and dispute any of this. You gave money back to some users( probably less than 1% of those who were damaged economically). Interesting that 2 people in the comments section for my reply have had the same exact issue on almost the same pc/parts(ABS). This is sounding more deliberate every second.
It's stuff like this why I don't order pc parts online. I make almost 2 hour drive 1 way to buy my pc parts. Most pc retail stores have closed. Outside of micro center
@@kaapuuu Yea US sucks for this because of that. We have very little recourse they can refuse refunds and also refuse to send back the item which is proof that it arrived defective.
fucking amazing that this happened, I already had a high level of respect for you guys but after this? you guys are by far the best journalists in any area!
I know I'm late to this video but finally got back to it. I love how he dragged his 100lbs balls in there and literally laughed at some of their excuses, didn't stand down, pushed back, gave them solutions they didn't want to hear but made them hear it anyways, everytime they tried to pivot he cut them off and forced it back to the point and kept the pressure on them the entire time. He's such a kind hearted guy but obviously shows that he can takes the gloves off and that is rare as fuck. He went in there to fight for the community to a degree magnitudes higher than ever never seen by anyone. This is definitely why Steve and his team are respected and grown so fast. There still one of the youngest youtube tech channels compared to the "veterans" on here and it just goes to show his commitment and integrity, as he did when calling out even Linus. But yeah, I remember the impact GX had from this interview and the waves it sent through the internet on twitter, reddit, discord, etc) Also, props to Andrew!
Thank you so much for doing this Steve! I was able to call Newegg customer service referencing this video and they refunded a previously denied restocking fee for an order I had returned over a year ago. Customer service was immediately aware of the video and processed the $315 refund no questions asked. Amazing!
There must be a path to redemption. Has anyone sat down with the veeps of Amazon? Of UA-cam? This "black box" modern corporate model is a plague and must be punished by alert consumers. _Caveat Emptor_
Couldn't help but laugh at the fact they sent a couple VPs and directors who haven't been with the company very long or are new to their role. I feel bad for them, high turnover I imagine?
@@countzero5150 Im glad that this was a red flag for yall too! The first time I bought something at Newegg was in 2006 and I was hoping to see at least a few people from those times
Probable. Newegg and others like it are absolutely in decline as behemoths like Amazon keep expanding. The guys who take these jobs either are drinking the kool-aid thinking they turn the ship around or they just could find anything else and take whatever golden parachute they were contractually promised and run when the ship inevitably sinks
It was painfully clear within the first five minutes of the interview that they are in full PR/damage control mode. They tried to get you lost in a nonsensical, repetitive, and reciprocal PR word jungle. There were a lot of carefully chosen words and corporate jargon from their side and none of it felt genuinely human or like they actually care about the underlying problems. It felt like a press briefing. As Andrew said it felt like they were more worried about the fact they got caught and the hot water that put them in than actually fixing the problems. The meeting seemed focused on making you (Steve) personally happy, while the concern for the rest of their customers was merely tangential at best. At the end of the day, this incident affected their bottom line and as corporate executives that's ultimately what they care about. That was the point of this meeting to them. To save face and save their revenue. It seems like its more about this single incident to them than a focus on the bigger picture. The big problem, as you mentioned, is that they are too disconnected from reality and too far above the "boots on the ground" employees that actually do the work that they don't understand that fixing these bottom up problems and focusing on said bigger picture is the best way to make them the money they care so much about. Maybe I misunderstood the point they were trying to make, but one thing that really irked me throughout the interview was how they kept trying to reinforce that "we're a small company, we don't have 500,000 employees" and it really had "just a small indie dev" meme vibes to it. You can't be a multi-national corporation and one of the most prominent electronics suppliers in the market and then try and use the "we're just a small company and we're still learning" excuse. We can see right through that and it doesn't fly. You've been around for 21 years Newegg. You have thousands of employees. You don't get to use the "small company still learning" excuse. I doubt Newegg will see this, but one suggestion I would like to make is for your high level execs (including everyone in attendance at this meeting) spend a week or two "in the trenches" and work in these departments. Spend a couple days working the RMA line. Spend a couple working the Customer Service desk. Spend a couple days picking product in the warehouse. If you have an actual retail location, go spend a few days on the sales floor. Work in the sales department for a couple days. Don't just visit with the supervisors for 10 minutes. Actually work in these departments. Shadow an employee for the day. Do it Undercover Boss style if you have to. Get a better idea of what your ground-floor employees and departments actually do and this will help you understand where the disconnect in policy vs procedure that kept being brought up in this meeting actually is and how to fix it. Another thing you could do, is just try using your own Customer Service. Call in, pretend to be a customer with an issue, and see how it goes. Linus Media Group does these kinds of undercover investigations and it really helps expose the issues a lot of these Customer Service departments have. Doing your own similar, internal, undercover investigation of your own department could yield some fantastic, and eye opening, results. When they kept suggesting "just ask for a manager" it became very clear none of them have had to call a customer service line in at least the last 15-20 years. Its so frustratingly hard to actually get in touch with a manager these days, not just at Newegg but everywhere, that its almost pointless to even ask. The reps just give you the runaround, and I can only assume its because "# of escalations" is a tracked KPI metric for the reps and the fate of their job is tied to these kinds of metrics. I do think its great they actually listened to Steve and implemented his suggestions in a pretty timely manner. We'll see if they keep following through on changes and improvements, or if they fall right back into their old rut once this whole thing gets far enough away in the rear view mirror. Steve, I look forward to future updates. This saga has me enthralled. EDIT: I removed this statement "and are worth $390 million in assets (in 2009 according to google) and made $2.7 billion in 2016." because, as pointed out by another commenter, its vague and potentially inaccurate. Its also not relevant to the point I was making. However, I wanted to keep it visible in the comment for clarity and transparency.
That doesn't contradict what he said. It's still PR speak, just that they're always doing it. Being vapid all the time doesn't excuse being vapid some of the time.
@@OverIoadTV You're both 100% right. This is status quo in management, AND it's because executives are soulless PR goons with waaay too big of a paycheck who spend 90% of their time using jargon to gaslight issues and inflate their fellow execs' egos.
Much respect to what you do. People cant change the world, but you def made a difference by standing up for your community, followers and viewers. This is amazin
The Newegg execs have fallen into one of the traps of the managerial mindset: They're working desperately not to have a bad reputation rather than working steadily not to deserve one. The first is a matter of saying soothing and/or confusing words to manipulate customers into calming down and getting back to their shopping; the second is a matter of ethical responsibility, meeting the expectations of their customers to be treated fairly and receive real value for their money.
That would cost profit margin, and apparently they're not willing to sacrifice enough there. Now watch for a glut of fraudulent returns taking advantage of this and worsening the problem.
Managers are not responsible for their decisions. They just go to another company and ruin that one too. No one puts company losses or damages in their CV.
Massive respect to Steve and GN team. being there in their meeting room, their enviroment, with people ready to intimidate you and trying to take control of the situation rather than willing to do whaever it takes to commit and improve, in a 1 vs 4 scenario, it takes alot of courage to do what you are doing /did, you are really doing something greater than it seems for this whole PC/Tech community. thanks a lot mate !
Honestly, it's not particularly intimidating or adversarial as you might think. This is how meetings often go in a corporate environment, and it's how things get done. As a matter of fact, were I in Steve's shoes, I would be grateful they went to the trouble to ensure they have everyone there who may be necessary to adequately answer any questions and speak to any concerns that may be raised.
I think what’s most concerning. Is that it had to get to this point for things to get resolved. If that motherboard had landed on any normal customer. Nothing would have changed. The rma would have been rejected. And they would have carried on. It’s just by chance it landed on someone that had a platform. They only became concerned about a customers experience because it was effecting their reputation because it landed on someone that confronted them on a global level.
This is absolutely correct. If it had been you or I, we'd have been screwed. Thank God for GN putting these shortcomings under a microscope. I just think he's wasting his time with these people. To be honest it all just seems like corporate lip service to quiet GN up.
@@t.dubbya7000 best to do something and hope change will come from it than do nothing and expect change anyway. If one gives up at the beginning because it may be a waste of time, nothing will ever be achieved or changed. We can influence our actions, not our outcomes. Always focus on the action and hope for the best. Or you will fall into nihilism, despair and depression. That is not a way to live
@@t.dubbya7000 personally I think too much damage has been done. I don’t live in the states but if I did I would be actively avoiding this company if this is what it takes for them to start treating their customers fairly. You could see them squirm when Steve mentioned about coming back for a follow up and looking at the rma line up. How many hundreds and thousands of people have been screwed over from a rejected rma. Only now they want to fix it because one landed on Steve. Shady company imo.
First off great job Steve. The biggest takeaway that I got from it was that most everybody you spoke with had not been with the company that long. They were all scared for their own necks and did not want to commit. Like most people in this world I think Newegg is an awesome company that has in the past been very good with customer relations. It is sad to see they fell down. I'm glad to see someone call them out for it
That also went about as I expected. They made a few token gestures while ignoring the real problem. Every time Steve brought up KPIs the execs were silent. When Steve mentioned rigid guidelines, they deflected. They're not interested in change; they're interested in making this go away. If Newegg really cared about customer service, instead of adding to the scripts they'd loosen them. They'd change KPIs to be more satisfaction-based and less numbers-based. They'd educate their employees on what they're doing and empower them to make good decisions. The route they're taking will lead to more of the same. More rigid guidelines. More mostly useless "yes/no" questions on a questionnaire employees don't have time to fill out properly. Extremely disappointed in Newegg. Thank you to Steve for holding Newegg accountable and being fair with them.
Satisfaction is just a number too. It's called Net Promoter Score, and it's a bane for CS agents worldwide, because the problems the company has is taken against the agent.
To run a company efficiently, things really need to be turned to a yes/no questions. It's called a flowchart. If CS agents are given free reign on refunds, fraudsters will run the company dry.
@@triadwarfare By giving CS agents scripts and not letting them deviate from those scripts is called; de-skilling. You're commodifying humanity. A more productive approach to those of us who want skilled knowledgeable people selling stuff, is to incentivise positive customer feedback, where: you're bonus pay/perks are awarded through positive customer feedback, not how ridgely and doggedly you can toe the management line because ultimately, customers return for reasons other than how well a CS agent stuck rigidly to the script, and by taking that approach, the company is just throwing good money after bad by having to employ multiple layers of managers to monitor how well CS agents are sticking to the script. A recipe for financial hell my friend, but sadly all too pervasive in companies that employ lack-lustre middle managers who know the price of everything, and the value of nothing!
Dunno if anyone else feels this way, but when a company moves their customer services to...twitter...I'm immediately appalled. How about have your own damn site and chat, instead of me having to put in my personal details on some random social media chat..? It just feels so extremely unprofessional to me...
@@Finaggle That's besides the point. I think they are getting at the fact that Twitter is not designed to be a sophisticated system for facilitating customer communication with a dedicated support team such as Salesforce or ZenDesk, tracking customer requests/issues, etc. Normally a marketing or PR team would be running a company's social media account. You don't really even know who you're speaking with or what their role is at the company when you're just communicating with a faceless Twitter account.
@@Finaggle Twitter is just some random social media as far as I'm concerned. I don't use it and I don't want to. The fact that I have to have one just so company will pay attention to my customer support needs is bullshit.
I do not disagree. However, the benefit (to the customer) of having a Twitter CS account is that the entire internet can see it. Hashtags WORK. I put my Cell service provider on blast on Twitter several years ago. The issue was resolved through DMs, (and I'm a lifelong customer due to that CS,) BUT if it wasn't for my initial @, my issue could and would have been ignored. So it's a two way street.
I've been a CS agent, and now am a business sales executive. I deal with a lot of VP types like these guys, and unfortunately a lot of this in plain English is "Damage control" They're using very specific, very prepared responses, and that's normal in business, but what those responses are designed to do, is deflect from core change, and only intended to wear down GN and the viewers/followers so they walk out of this slightly confused, reasonably appeased and ultimately un-recognized. From the company side of things, the amount of money, training, and local sourcing for CR's, Warehouse and VP's and most importantly policy changes to actually create the change GN and the community is trying to achieve would bankrupt the company. They can put a bandage on the issue with their small token gestures, but ultimately the company couldn't change if it wanted to. In closing, I believe the people in this meeting clearly cared, and in their roles would like to make change, however without the "big giant heads" of the company granting them autonomy to create genuine policy changes, unfortunately there won't be much done. At least there was some token solving of the immediate situation, I'm sure it'll cost NewEgg a few pennies, but the jury is out if there will be any continuous or ultimately realistic changes. I applaud the GN team for taking this on, it's literally David Vs Goliath in scale.
Come on. This company have a revenue of 7b$ for 1500 employee. It wouldn't bankrupt them to implement new policies and improve their processes. It would cost them some money though. In their eye, it would cost them less to BS their way like they did. What is sad, is that their short term and assholley view might cost the company its whole reputation, and bankrupt it. What are those bozoes risking? Pretty much nothing, they'll get some golden parachute, and go leech another company.
@@xmtxx are there any business that went bankrupt because their reputation was destroyed on youtube? not that i know of:( why would happen to newegg? they probably has hundreds of thousands of customers that will have no idea about this channel/the event happenned, and they will continue using it like normal. what i understood with limited knowledge i have and with @kazuka 's point of view is making changes in policies is orders or magnitude more riskier for their stocks and chairmen than having a mere thousands of "loyal" customers stop buying from there and hating online. It is like being an public company is a blessing and a curse.
@@PrivacyEnt that was my thought. what percentage of their customer base are avid viewers of tech-youtube channels? probably not many, but still, GN is doing incredible work and I'm sure with the power of the interwebs, this stuff will spread. Cue the GN grim reaper meme knocking down another door.
@@PrivacyEnt not any that have been bankrupt but many have been dealt real damage to their bottom line at the hands of GN. However miniscule that damage may be it's impressive that a small group of guys can make that impact on a massive company.
I worked at a warehouse once, we had a screen showing how many items we had to process per hour, and how many we're actually processing. Also the productivity had to increase by 2% every month. I used to work for 6 hours at once, and since I wasn't allowed a break (breaks only if going to work 8 hours) I'd make so many mistakes in the last 2 hours due to being literally unable to think or focus, I'd be on autopilot, completely zoning out, scanning the wrong item, and only realising that it was a mistake a minute later, and sometimes I'd even validate a mistake instead of correcting it because the thinking side of the brain just didn't wanna wake up. It was a weird feeling, I'm usually aware but in there it was so hard to snap back out of autopilot. All this to say maybe their workers are overworked and also go through autopilot
You didn't really seem nervous for someone who was calling out a company's B.S. in the faces of four of them and on their home field advantage. And boy did you call em out. Well done
Yeah, and Newegg did not give me much faith. It seems like Newegg is only looking at top-down solutions. It was really interesting that one of them outright said that a single employee was responsible.
I'm 17 minutes in and I can tell from his mannerism and body language that he is nervous, however, rightfully so. Being in a room full of executives *can* put a psychological strain on you which encourages anxiety, nervousness, loss of confidence; especially if you're not used to situations like this. I'm new to this channel but was genuinely curious about this newegg situation. Just going off of comparisons in terms of confidence, etc from his other videos and comparing it to this current situation he's in. Edit: For clarification, I guess, I'm not disagreeing with you on how newegg has been supplying some horse shit as of late. This is just simply an observation :)
Honestly, I don't know how much better the interview could have gone given the nature of the issues. It will be interesting to see where this goes in the next 6-12 months. Great work!
out of all the dog sh1t and bad takes in this comment section, this is the single most underrated and reasonable takeaway Ive seen. +10 for being a normal, intelligent, human. :)
Thats how people at this level answer questions. They really have no idea what its like to actually perform the job and its clear there is a divide between the suits and the working people. Fairly common with companies... these guys are just trying to keep their stock holders happy and make this go away. Make no mistake they hate gamers nexus for this.
“If you have nothing to say, say nothing. If you have something to say, say it, no matter what they ask. “Better still, pay no attention to the question, just make your own statement. Jim Hacker is a true politician.
@@PressStartOnce Sounds like any of the political debates that happen: Why answer the question asked, when you can go back to your practiced talking points?
He does a good job of being like no this is what I need to know but yeah it's bs that's how you have to interact with people, shouldn't have to try to assert dominance and force the answer to the actual question out of them. Having a partner there to just interrupt and be like that's irrelevant to what's being asked is hugely helpful
I really love this and go steve for having our backs .. i think the biggest thing they could have done was grab people from those departments and actually ask them what happen .. because saying they know people in those departments doesn't make it feel like they truly know what is going on in those departments..
Moral of the story: "You're a random client without any weight or ability to pressure us? We don't really care." But then: "Wait, you're a famous UA-cam channel dedicated to PC and a celebrity/influencer of sorts? We shall prepare a board meeting to receive you properly." THIS is the message I get about this company.
This is EVERY corporate company. Care is provided on a "who pays the most" basis. It really does make me despise publicly owned companies, but you gotta live with some demons
This is literally any large corporation unfortunately, Newegg isn't unique in this. Wish it weren't so, but the fact that Newegg agreed to a meeting and actually followed through in the end is commendable on their part imo
That's the same for all big companies. My friend bought from a local store and had a DOA motherboard, they tested it right away on a test bench and confirmed it was toast and handed him a new one.
@@atodaso1668 this is why we try to buy local/privately as often as possible. I won't avoid corporations because quite frankly there's just no way you can do it without being overtly selective about it, which is ridiculous.... Instead, you are better off shopping local as often as you can, and this goes for everything in your life -- local grocery store chains (even larger ones), local hardware stores, electronics shops, eyeglasses (even though they all come from luxotica), literally you name it, try to get it from a one off shop -- you'll have a better experience and a similar or higher quality product in most cases
amazing. that was exactly what i thought of when they said "no filming" and steve said "we'll keep it on the floor". THAT's how you should approach these corpos: don't let them dictate the flow and chip away at small demands.
I havent commented here before, yet i feel compelled to say this. Your commitment to getting the best overall experience for consumers is incredibly profound. It is commendable that you will "call out" a company, and then willing sit down with them, and show them how to handle their own business better. I can only suggest, and perhaps you do this already, is that if you havr a sponsor of one of these companies, that you write it into the contract that youll speak openly and honestly, and if a negative occurs, youll allow the business the oppritunity to appropriately handle it. Because as you seem to say, the effecient and effective ways of handling issues is paramount to a busineses longevity and overall success. To be renowned for its simplicity to interact with. We all love amazon, because we trust that we wont get screwed over if we encounter a problem. It just sucks that amazon refuses to unionize
This damage control, things will not change. Amazon take returns no questions asked full refund on items sold by amazon but not 3rd party sellers. It works on Amazon because I used it once.
You know what, good on them for fronting up and doing the interview, and by all accounts they are moving on some of what was discussed, which is really cool. I really hope that in a follow up video, rather than just saying "Meets expectations" they can work their way up to a "Better than Dell" award. Steve et al; this is probably one of the biggest and most important pieces of journalism you guys have done, because it affects literally tens of thousands of people, even more than NZXT and their fire box, or Gigabyte and the explodeyboi boxes, and it is absolutely awesome that you continue to work this hard for US. Congrats on making a truly positive change in this sector.
@@JaceFalcon He is exposing NewEgg's horrible consumer practices so that they cannot take advantage of those consumers. How in the hell is he responsible for the same company's employee satisfaction... do you know stupid that comment is? Unfathomably stupid. He put in the work for what was right. Get out of here with that nonsense.
@@JaceFalcon customers wanting the shyt they buy to work and be as described isn't "entitlement", if workers are treated poorly that's on the company not customers
@Jace Flux So as opposed to their company itself being held to account for their gross negligence that is directly leading to the robbery of consumers you are suggesting that we be nice so we don't hurt any feelings? What, do you put Vaseline on your holes before corporations have their way you? Do you thank them when they're done? There's nothing MORE reasonable than asking that a deal or contract is fulfilled TO THE LETTER. That especially includes purchases. It's called consumer protection and you're lucky to even have it. Don't be so quick to throw it away just because you're a f*cking Carebear (or more likely a shill).
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That red and black mod mat….. ;)
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Really gotta get something from you lol
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This man sat here alone, with millions of people behind him and addressed an entire board of execs. Great job man. Thank you.
He may have been alone in the room but he had hundreds or thousands of marginalized consumers behind him in writing. The reveal that that binder was 1/4 of what he had prepared was such a holy shit moment. Like yeah try and downplay the frequency of the issue now. So he was backed by all the abused consumers and the rest of his many fans, but you're right he still had to sit in a room solo with a bunch of suits whose job it is to deflect and do damage control and try and keep them nailed down and focused on what they were actually going to DO about the issue and not just let them blather on endlessly about vague policies with no concrete commitments to actually doing anything.
Umm, no. He's not alone. He's just the only one with the social followers to push back. People can always vote with their wallet. If you stupid sheeple would stop buying products from Newegg, and let it hurt their bottom line. I haven't bought anything from them in ten years. Can you say the same?
eh, it's really a non-issue tbh. Just because one person has a bad RMA experience does not mean everyone does, I've RMA'ed about 5 products with Newegg, all went down smoothly. In this case, either new egg really tried to scam him (unlikely) or just some unfortunate circumstances lead to the this situation (the product being open-box + RMA return department being stooges) ... Majority of the time, it will be fine. executives have nothing to do with daily operations, they just do paperwork and logistics, the real people in the wrong are the Returns department that tried to lie to cover themselves up. I don't see any cause for concern in daily operations of Newegg, it's not like every single package is denied RMA, in-fact statistically it's around a 90% approval rate. The other 10% being clearly non-RMA cases. Maybe 1% of RMA denials are actually newegg being stupid.
As both sides agreed in the video, even if it's 1% you're still talking about a massive fuckload of people having an utterly unacceptable horrendous experience. Hope your Newegg stock didn't get hit too hard obvious shareholder and you can still afford your new yacht this year.
@@benjamingavrilis71 I think you may be the exception and not the rule for the current state of Newegg. Years ago, I would have agreed with you, but the more recent years, not so much. The executive suite so to speak seems to be packed with individuals that haven't succeeded in previous ventures. If anything, seeing the corporate side left me with even less respect for them as a company, and they've become a wholesaler. Might as well just gamble on parts from Wish when you compare their input and responses.
Thanks for keeping companies honest & focusing on the consumers when the corporations won't.
heyy Brett!! Love your channel and work buddy!!
It's our Brett Host! Much love and peace with you always.
Thanks for your content.
I wish they would have talked about your situation on how they refused to pay you and the charity stream giveaway they butchered.
there is no way to make new egg honest
Thanks for sharing your own story on your channel.
Poor Eric, only one month at the company before this all blew up 😔
Despite how we felt about Newegg, it doesn't stop us from feeling some empathy for his position. That's a tough spot to be without anyone more experienced for guidance.
Right? As soon as he said how long he had been there I was thinking how sorry I felt for him and how this is his trial by fire, but I bet this will look good on him in the long run on how he handled it.
@@mromutt I felt bad for a few of these guys with so little time at the job. Luckily most had years of experience in the field but yeah a month or two at a new position is rough when this type of situation occurs. The good thing is that he has the chance to make a big difference in how this whole situation turns out.
He pulled the Homer Simpson it's my first day lol.
The fact that 3 out of 4 of them have less than a year at the company even though they are high ranking high payed positions tells you a lot about the company.
"The reason this video is long is because we didn't want to make any cuts in the interview so that neither party questions the outcome of the video." The commitment to integrity is terrific.
Also the reason I only got time to watch this 3 mths later. That tab was open for a looooong time.
@@mrblurleighton I struggle with commending something that should be expected anyway, but yes, this is certainly what we need.
@@TheBanjoShowOfficial Isn't it normal to edit interviews for time? I can't recall watching many where the interviewer doesn't cut anything.
@@mrblurleighton it is normal for interviewers to cut down parts of the interview for time. But in this case Steve is trying to be transparent about the entire interview. That way newegg cant come out and say, “hey! You took out some of our great talking points!”. Also that way steve doesnt come out looking like he cut bits and pieces out to make newegg look good/bad. He left it all in unedited so we (the viewers) can form our own opinions since all of the footage is included. Plus it probably helps him out from a liability standpoint if newegg didnt quite like the edit and it helps save him from litigation (lawsuits). If you want to make a video with corporate people that video has to go through their legal team and a bunch of other places before you can even post it. This way he doesnt have to do that since everything that was captured is truly what happened.
@@vohnyf I was simply defending GamersNexus because @TheBanjoShow
claims that they did nothing special by making the interview uncut. I understand and appreciate their decision. 😎
"These policies have been in place"
"So it's back to poor execution then?"
I could hug you right now Steve.
I must admit I had a good chuckle there
do you have a timestamp for when this happened?
@@stinkydingdong 27:55
They had two choices!
@@johnyewtc1 thanks
Newegg should embrace what gamers nexus is trying to do. This isn't about an RMA product anymore. Those numbers are scary and Newegg is actually at risk of succumbing to Amazon. Gamers Nexus has evolved professionally and independently at an alarming rate in this industry, and is more than capable of giving Newegg some serious help. This channel has evolved into a full scale company that is more than adequate for the task.
Thank you for the kind words!
Look at that fat stack of vetted emails. That would make any VP wish they were wearing the brown pants. There is a systemic issue there and I think this brought it to the full attention of people with the titles to make an change. But these people are new to the company it seems so maybe an issue of reverse culture clash after the merge and being a bit to late to fixing the issue.
just hope that newegg is not blind to what GN is trying to do. GN is not trying to bring down Newegg but to bring it to a better position by telling them "hey, you fuck up. now fix it". publicly traded companies dont listen to employees concern regarding policies but will act only when their name is tarnish. that is the sad thing.
@@muzallisam5068 this is not true. There are many publicly traded companies that listen to their employees. Newegg has been going through loads of corporate changes this is the source of their problem. They dont seem to be unified.
@@Marin3r101 It's important to remember that Newegg was sold to Chinese investors some years back. It's literally not the same Newegg that everyone remembers from "back in the day" All those new people are there specifically to ensure the Chinese investors get their money back. Previously Newegg wasn't really making money at all which is why they got sold in the first place.
Honestly, I'm not sure any of Newegg's staff present at this meeting really knows how the company operates. I've seen this happen before. People get invited to a meeting based upon rank, not because they can actually answer questions.
Fun fact: Most execs in big corps like that _actually don't_ understand how their company actually works. ... actually works as in the part that actually does work, not what legalese they use to screw over customers.
Corporate America right there... selected based on the size of your office not the knowledge of the issue.
I get BS vibes from the guy at the end of the table. Newbie next to Steve sounds a little corporate wordy but otherwise genuine and same for the other two in my opinion.
@@ryanamey5024 Yeah, me too... I get the impression this guy sells Snake Oil as a side hustle.
@@ashkebora7262 This is a big deal in almost every industry because we have so many people hired as "customer service" who just are not empowered to do shit. Years of experience may get you hired and salaried but your value to the company has nothing to do with experience or output, you just need to have your butt is in the chair so the company can say they're doing everything they're supposed to be doing to the shareholders that control most of their profits. It's theatre. They do not care about individual customers. And they are not sorry for anything until they get caught and shareholders make them answer. NEVER assume they are being NICE GUYS to you and striking you a GOOD DEAL. NEVER convince yourself that you are being catered to.
I worked with Vincent at Newegg in 2018. We worked at the customer service department together. As I recall there was very poor leadership at the time but Vincent was always carrying the team in spite of our colleague's failings. I'm glad he is in more of a leadership position now.
that one good leader in a company is sometimes the link holding everything together. and alot and maybe even most companies go after that good leader and do everything to pin all the bad things on that one person. and its very sad. the place i work at now is absolute garbage. Iv tried to get everyone here to understand that it dont have to be like this. I worked at a mcdonolds 3 differnt times the first time it was a good place not bad the second time i was the assisent manager or what mcds calls the people manager. and I had my people actually loving to come to work sometimes even more than having days off work because i would have adults calling on their days off saying can i come in to work its fun and im at home and i just want to go in to work because i feel like a member of the team and a member of the family. and not being there i feel like something is missing. I also had teenagers 15-16 yr olds trying to come in to work by skipping school and calling in and asking to come in to work. I did not let that happen obviously. and the final time there it was terrible to be there. point being is that that place was the same place doing the same thing and the only diffrance was the leaders where terrible.
@@bobthompson4319 You are kinda describing a socialism bubble struggling to prevail in capitalism. In socialism there is no alienation in purpose due to being a servant for the oligarchy but a sense of purpose through benefitting the community. That can be immensely empowering. (And that's why it is usually stomped quickly.) - It is a really ancient theme of human woe that the ruling elite tries to keep the rabble down, so to speak. That's why there is such a profound emphasis of class war in socialism. Rich vs. poor is at the root of it all. (Although you can go deeper and eventually the basic duality is love vs. fear.)
@@Dowlphin shut up
@@Dowlphinwhat is the definition of socialism? Do you know?
@@deucedeucerims In the most original sense of the word it is a system that prioritizes the well-being of society as a whole. We can do the same with capitalism, which is a system that prioritizes the amassment of material wealth.
The absolute bollocks and virtue of the GN team is amazing
@Lotus Science prevails where your God fails.
Testicles of granite
yes this was a great talk although I am very skeptical things will change.
@Lotus That was terrible.
The way he told them they'd record on the way in and point the camera at the ground and intimidated the Newegg guy into saying ok defeated was great
The part where you resist turning off the camera during your walk in is assertiveness in the face of perceived authority. This is the type of thing that should be taught to anyone who wants to become a journalist: how not to fold to someone's attempts to control an interview.
100% right. Bold move
It‘s definitely a security and/or insurance measure.
They don‘t want to have a video online, where everybody can see their security cameras and other security systems. If someone breaks inside this building, steals or destroys documents or equipment or harms any employees, the insurance company could without any doubt reject paying any money, because of NewEgg breached simple security measurements.
@@paralytaatylarap9715 And that's reasonable. But they wanted NO RECORDING except in the interview. GN kept the camera rolling with audio. This way, they honor the reasonable security issue while not compromising the integrity of the report.
@@Eremal I think it's even more ethical to tell the person you're interviewing that you will not stop recording but that you will keep the camera from recording footage that is not pertinent to story. This way there is no deception. GN did the most ethical thing.
@@paralytaatylarap9715 if someone was really trying to break into a corporate hq, they would need more than a UA-cam video. The easiest route is social engineering. Worrying about someone filming walking in is paranoia. Real life ain't Oceans 11 🤣
The balls of “so it’s back to poor execution then.” I laughed so hard.
It’s so refreshing not seeing an interviewer back down
timestamp?
NewBall has some HUGE eggs to let this encounter go live!
@@AveryChow 28:00 but 27:37 adds more context leading into it.
And they all instantly agreed it was poor execution. Pretty funny, and kinda nice to hear them say it.
Speaks volumes that 3/4 of these execs have been there for less than 6 months.
Yeah struck me. Clearly the previous ones *knew* something was wrong, likely refusing to do anything about it because it made their metrics look good so got the house cleaned
@@Firecracker048It's so funny to hear the way these executives speak. I work in the medical field and its hilarious to hear the buzzwords and strategy BULLSHIT. These execs are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. :)
BULLSHITTING PAYS! It really does so anyone reading this and wants to make money just become that gray man.
and also not to be overlooked that these were lowercase "E" "execs" in that - they're glorified salesmen that are meant to sell the product of "the company". Your point, and every counterpoint to their non-answers is shown in their buisness-man-ship
Was thinking just that
@@alexpseudonym5735last minute hires from within so that there's someone at the wheel, because it's probably still better than just hoping the final 1/4th don't jet too
Thank you for fighting back for consumer rights, and for pushing one of our favorite online retailers in the right direction. Hopefully these executives stop pandering in their meetings, and actually make decisive action to *properly* fix the mistakes they have made.
what the heck i didn't know you could donate like this
Nice goldy comment
I agree, they should have had that meeting down in the lunch room at the Return center, with the employees there.. real feed back . Like some undercover boss..
youtube becoming reddit???!!!@!
What GN done was excellent. More popular YT's that deal with gaming/tech should follow GN example and not just for North America but Europe as well. Well done Steve👍
Hey you talked to Vince! Here I was thinking I didn't know anyone at Newegg anymore. I'm gonna see if Vince wants to hang out. Great work Steve!!
Hi paul
LOL ,And have some barbeque?
He seemed to be the most on the ball and offered the most sincere desire to meet customers needs
@@AzareGG Hi Vince.
@@sypratePrivate To me, Vince seemed like he was giving the most watered down corporate speak that had more life than Terry Cox's corporate speak, but significantly more shallow.
Some notes: Honestly the customer experience would be improved dramatically if the marketplace was eliminated. I shop at Newegg for Newegg. Same goes for Amazon. The websites were better before third parties could sell on the platform. I want a focused, curated selection of products and not random aliexpress rubbish. Everything for sale should be worth buying for some purpose. There is far too much shovelware on Newegg and Amazon.
They touched upon why Steve's RMA was denied, but I'd like to know why Steve's board even ended up for sale. Why was it on location at all? They declined to fix the bent pins from Gigabyte. It shouldn't have been in a sales area at any point when Gigabyte sent it back - it should have gone straight to an e-waste pile.
Yeah if they didn’t address the why for those facts then I’m surprised.
I agree completely, either remove it or hold the marketplace vendors to a higher standard or vetting process.
I have never liked the marketplace concept but for unimportant, inexpensive items. I want to order as much as possible from one seller and one that has a reputation I can feel secure in. I also prefer having that relationship where when some crazy unbelievable scenario occurs where I need a replacement or refund it will happen, basically no questions asked.
completely agreed edit - yes I'm willing to pay more for that because it's worth it, it's overall better value.
I don't trust Terry Cox.
That is the reason I have never shopped at Newegg. The Marketplace sellers are trash. If they let trash into their website then their standards of partners are extremely low.
I don't even have the words to describe the integrity of GN. And wow the courage too. For two reasons - first it has to be intimidating to sit down in front of four execs! and second you're representing so many of us, and you represented us amazingly. Respect.
I didn't even feel like the Newegg guys were thaaaaatt bad. They just never met a man like Steve before, that refused to back down at any point.
Only 21 minutes in, but it seemed like New Egg was thinking they could make this all about the one incident GN had, but Steve made sure the conversation shifted to the real issues. Working at a boring insurance company as a dev, it is always fun to see PR and management squirm. Edit: seeing that VP wince when Steve said KPI for the first time was great.
timestamp on the first KPI mention?
26:03 First mention of KPIs (key performance insights.)
@@skillzorz101 key performance indicator
KPI comment at 26:03 for anyone wanting to watch the squirm. I listened to the whole thing instead of watching it, had to go look for it after seeing your comment. Edit: I see someone already beat me to it lol.
I winced at 7:40 and 7:50. My face was totally doing the "press X to Doubt" face
I think Steve manage to avoid showing that "face" to the reps, thanks to the face mask.
"If you didn't like your experience you should ask to speak to a manager."
WE TRY. In my experiences, the customer service reps refuse to let us speak to managers or supervisors. They will use every excuse in the book to make sure you don't get to talk to a manager. They would rather your issue go unresolved or be handled incorrectly than to escalate your call to a supervisor. Newegg Customer Support is what drove me away from purchasing from them all together. The business my family owns and operates have spent tens of thousands of dollars with Newegg since 2009 but we stopped in 2019 due to how awful their customer support has become.
Wow. If that's how they think they'll never fix their business. "When our system fails, you should bypass it! Otherwise we'll never learn."
I have worked for a few companies as customer service/tech support.
we do send this info, agents do care for customers, but sometimes management doesn’t care until it bites back or legally they have the obligation, don’t be a d!ck to customer service we sometimes feel bad to not helping you.
I have advice customers to request refunds to bank, do other processes that will fix their issue but sometimes managers, supervisors and “QA” doesn’t like that because it isn’t cost effective to the company even tho its companies fault.
A huge reason why that is a thing is because so many people want to speak to a manger for a minuscule reason to the point that managers don't want escalations unless necessary. This can only improve if people can just understand the word no and move on for most cases.
Example: "Can I get a discount? No? Your manager will give me one, escalate me to them." that has happened over 100 times across multiple companies I have worked with.
Or, a lot of the times, an agent is completely able to handle something but, the customer doesn't like waiting, etc. People love to waste everyone's times. 9/10 if they say they won't escalate you, it's because they already know what the manager will say OR the manager is aware of your situation and already gave the agent their answer.
Of course, the 1/10 is legit and when that does happen, it's the absolute worst. But that 9/10 ruined it for everyone else.
Yea that was another problem when Steve asked for a manager they said the manager wasn't in.
@@jahyralvarado676 Oh, I feel your pain. Fortunately mostly by transmission but unfortunately a little by sympathy. There is good QA and bad QA. Good QA is transformative and makes your job great; you on the front line should become invincible by it. Bad QA will sink a business in no time. I hope someday you get to experience good QA.
I think it's really telling that most of the people at the table have had their positions for less than 6 months. I work for a company that is in similar straits and let me tell you, if they're having trouble keeping seasoned employees at the top, you can bet the turnover rate of their regular employees is incredibly bad.
I agree
It could also be an issue with the low profit from PC components. This usually leads to low salary for employees and that contributes alot to turnover. I had jobs in the past where the pay was adequate for what it was asked of me but when trying to to my job I had lots of blockers which contributed to stress and not being happy with the pay vs effort required. My team started with 40 people and in 2 years we only had about 7 left. And out of those 7, 6 stayed for that long (me included) because of promotions to better roles with higher pay. I ultimately left during my 5th year because management was the core issue and I got to report directly to them. Once I saw that the grievances could not be resolved without a fundamental shift (and maybe the demotion/firing of the poorly performing managers) I just left.
This is likely the true root of the problem. Too much turnover tends to make rules rapidly change making enforcement frustrating. New blood at the exec level tends to make floor management stressed because the new blood gets fire-happy when they think they know what the problem and it forces management to force the boots-on-ground to churn out better performance. If it keeps up, the whole company could become destabilized.
Look at LinkedIn many people now rotate new jobs every two years it's the fastest way to climb the ladder. Work one position as plant manager 65k annual 2yrs, another company will promote you to regional plant manager 85k annual work 2yrs, global plant manager... etc.. people learned loyalty and annual 2% raise is trash and they've marketed themselves and made themselves valuable. If you don't believe once again go to LinkedIn and look at all high ranking corporate members. They went from 15yrs at one place in early 90s-2000s to now moving a lot
@@wowitsruss It is an interesting phenomenon that has changed over my lifetime. It used to be that when you apprenticed into production and then management you were essentially set for life if you simply showed up and did a good job. Now it seems like people are expendable and the incentive is not to do a good job but to get the best deal.
Priorities culturally seem wrong. It should be the goal to do the best job you can and exceed expectations; the money will come for the honest labor and love. Maybe I'm old fashioned.
This is so wild, I haven’t ordered from Newegg in years, I’m not into gaming or high-end PC building, but I stumbled on this series and ended up watching all your videos on it simply because of the quality journalism. You don’t have to be a PC enthusiast to appreciate the level of work and integrity that went into this. Well done.
Just like you, NewEgg was the go-to-place years ago. My first EVGA cards were from NewEgg. My current computer is seven years old and I'm just getting into gear to build a new system, and i stumbled upon this channel. Which is great BTW
Be very careful when watching. I too was not interested at all at high end computer building, but watched GN on and off for a year or two, because I respect the journalism. But now I find myself ordering motherboards and CPUs and air flow cases online and building my first computer! Parts in the mail as I speak. GN is a gateway drug!!
21:13 21:25
Rather concerning that most of these executives have only been around for a few months. Definitely agree with Andrew in that they were more concerned about damage control than actually resolving the systemic issues.
If 3 out of 4 executives are here for less then a month, how long did the previous guys last? If there is a revolving door of management that's a big red flag for a company
If they were able to address the issues, they would have. I expect them to do a wave of fixing problems for people who email them today, but once this dies down, they will go back to ignoring problems. You can even see the mentality that got them into this position. They kept talking way too much about the customer's purchase history or return history as a justification for denying or allowing a return. This is exactly what caused all of their existing problems and they don't seem to acknowledge it at all. They allow support techs to deny returns based on customer purchase and return history, opinions are not how returns should work. That is massively absurd. If they allow a customer to purchase, they must accept the returns.
The decision to accept any returns happens when you allow a purchase. If they dislike a customer for returning too much, they are free to ban the customer from future purchases while still handling returns on existing purchases within the return window. They don't seem to get it, but it is a scam when you sell the product knowing you may not honor the return policy depending on the opinion of a support tech and if that random tech personally feels it is reasonable to allow a return or not.
How do you know based on this video? What did you expect for them to say or do?
I don't see the point of this video. Newegg has been a garbage company for nearly a decade now. Flying out to talk to a bunch of executives whose job is to protect the company image isn't going to change a single thing. Steve is trying to give a chance to a company that has had numerous chances and is known to be trash.
If ppl there are new to their Jobs its likely that the old ppl who worked before them got fired or just said nope to their (maybe new) Methods. Or rather its unlikely those Guys got the Job recently because they did such a great Job… when there is obviously Things going on that have NOT been ok recently… So something is off. Whatever actually it is… again, something is off.
Hey @Gamers Nexus you are an absolute beast at journalism and will always have my respect big guy 🤗🤗🤗🤗
Agreed!
🙃
Thanks, Barnacules!
please make more 3d printing vids
@time is near what do your stuff have to do with this ?
I just wish Newegg would have said something like "This issue was caused by one of our KPIs pushing employees to harm customers to keep their jobs. The KPI was to keep their RMA count low, when it should have been about accuracy. We've changed that to random RMA reviews, rather than raw RMA numbers, and we've also looked at our other KPIs and made changes where necessary to prevent things like this from happening in the future."
So many executives and high level managers push for the wrong KPIs. They want to see a low number, so they push employees to make that number lower when it's not their responsibility or pay grade to. And then things like this happen.
Yeap, bingo. As far as I can tell, most corporations work just like this. They settled on a KPI they want to see and do not care about the value of the work that it takes to get there.
Boom, exactly. That's exactly the issue and what should have been said but they danced around the issue the entire time and nothing of honesty in that regard was ever said.
Your comment is awesome and I hope more people see this.
They can't admit that publicly on video because then they would have to deal with a lot more crap than just unhappy customers.
Yes. Exactly. This concerned me too. Especially when it was brought up that the employees on the ground had their own home-brew set of procedures, and Newegg management was unwilling to address the issues this represents, nor make any definitive commentary on how they would actually resolve that.
^ This girl consults. Or MBAs. Or both.
Holy shit. Props for not backing down to them during the meeting.
I follow a lot of car reviewers who talk a big game about whichever car manufacturer is having an issue and as soon as they meet with their rep, they just not along with a shit-eating grin.
Seriously, this is top tier content.
Problem with car reviewers is they dont want for the manufacture to stop sending them press cars for reviews. Its easier to buy a 2000 dollars 4090 than a 80k bmw
Steve, you earned my respect, most people with a platform never do this stuff for their viewers. You spent your money to fly to California, to change a company to help your viewers. I think i will buy a coaster or a mod mat. Thank You
Well, to be honest, drama is the best content a YT channel can wish for. It brings in headlines, viewers (like myself, I didn't watch this channel before this), popularity and it doesn't really cost that much. If Newegg works hard and fixes everything, it's a win for GN (to force a company to be good), if they don't it's still a win for GN, more videos and stuff.
Those mod mats. I have their largest one and absolutely love it.
@@asbestosfibers1325 that’s true but they still had to cut there business trip short to go to the Newegg headquarters and bought a plane ticket to Southern California from Northern California.
"If you didn't like your experience you should ask to speak to a manager"
Have they ever tried to speak to a manager? They specifically train their teams on the phones to make it frustrating.
hello my name is punjabi oo sorry i meant john.
I was gonna say you would likely have to spend 2 hours on the phone to get to talk to a manager.
And that is still unlikely.
Didn’t GN specifically try to escalate their case before the video?
@@WayStedYou I am pretty sure they would cut you off before 20mins let alone 2 hours LoL.
In my mind's eye I visualized Steve launch across the table and throttle the ignorant MFer who said that. THAT statement absolutely revealed the severity of the disconnect between those responsible for the system (the Mgrs) and the actual system itself. How completely typical.
imagine buying a 3070, receiving a 3090 and still being honest and returning it, BUT NEWEGG DECLINES LMAO
Story from an order I made with Amazon. I once ordered a gaming mouse. MSRP $89.99 and was on sale for $49.99. So I ordered one. I recieved four of them. I called Amazon support and told them "Hey, I checked my bank statements and my receipt. I ordered 1 mouse, paid the $49.99 and would like to return the other three mice." they more or less told me "It's December. Enjoy a Christmas present." and left me with three extra mice. I gave one to my dad, one to my sister, and kept a spare for myself.
Literally donowalled
@@TinariKaoI once bought 1 of a bowl and they mistakenly sent 1 of a set of 4 of that bowl
i had an identical experience with staples where i ordered some basic ass acer laptop (or dell laptop, i forget) for schoolwork since i was starting college through their home delivery service since they didn't have any left in stock, and they ended up mailing me one of the top of the line (at the time) multimedia HP laptops instead and an alienware desktop (but with no monitor or keyboard).
I filed no complaints.
@@TinariKao never had this luck last time I ordered some Philips shp9500s they got lost in shipping according to Amazon so they send me another pair, and somehow eventually I got the other pair of 9500s but amazon automatically charged me again when I contacted them about it they told me to return the 2nd pair. This was around Christmas time too was a present for myself only to find that I got trolled by amazon because I got them super late and got charged for both.
How the heck are videos like this only getting 1.6 million views? This was good work. Thank you Steve and the Gamers Nexus team!
Thanks so much for all your efforts Steve and team. This must have been enormously stressful but the community appreciates it massively.
BOOSTED MEDIA!!!!!
The interactions between more experienced and younger members of the Newegg team was interesting. Two of the execs wanted the final word, but both had very different approaches and wanted to handle things differently ("follow up with me..." "no, follow up with me"). The returns guy was more direct, but the customer service hotshot kept trying to have the last word even though he was somewhat implicated in the larger issues (since CS makes the final RMA decisions). And the rapid exec turnover at the company suggests a deeper issue with the internal company culture (or lack of the consistent, customer- first culture that used to be the case). These people seem as if they had never met before...
I got that sense too regarding the leadership. The lack of continuity of leadership could certainly have a direct impact on some of these issues. That was the first thing that struck me, just how green all of these Executives were to their positions and even to Newegg itself. Right off the bat, that did not instill me with a lot of confidence with how the conversation was going to go.
The VPs are execs, the directors are middle managers. The VPs are peers, the directors will report either directly to them or through another group leader. VPs are useless as they are far divorced from the actual products and processes and more focused on profit and loss. They task others to clean up areas where they are losing money, completely ignorant to the actual issue or cause. VPs propose a vision and make other figure it out, that's it. They blame others when it fails, too. The directors have a bit input to actual operations, but still pass everything through middle managers. The directors will get the group together to try to solve an issue, but are still pretty isolated from the real work. PR...... No one likes PR. They are all fake.
I think you nailed it. This seemed like 4 different agendas sitting in a room, trying not to get stuck with a hot potato of blame for the multiple fuck ups that occurred.
Also, it's irritating as hell for that ops guy to keep saying 'this only happens in a small number of cases.' MFer, if your car's engine randomly exploded and the manufacturer said 'we had no malice, this just happens in a small number of cases,' you would be pissed. Same thing here.
Never thought I'd watch a whole corporate meeting on UA-cam. Nevertheless, great content from all of you! This is real tech-journalism work
The fake corporate-speak is really bugging me. Steve asked why people should shop at Newegg and the customer service guy gives a long-winded overview of policies they've enacted, but clearly haven't worked well for customers. He didn't answer the question and just talked for long enough that he hoped you'd forget what was asked.
I have to deal with this type of speech all the time and it's frustrating because you know if they just spoke candidly you'd have an answer in 1/3 the time and would likely have a better understanding. You might not like the answer itself, but I'd rather have the info than be led around by the nose.
@@XenithflareGaming i agree i was just going to "echo" what you was going to say. XD
@@XenithflareGaming This is the old school way of talking in the business world, as the new generation comes in, this cooperate lingo should go away. Consumers now are forcing the hands of companies for more transparency and to be more direct. Gamers Nexus having this meeting uploaded to UA-cam is a HUGE step in the right direction!
Incredible video. Just found this content, yep, you guessed it. Had a shipping issue with them due to receiving an RMA, open box item as new. Old RMA label was on the box, arrived at my local distribution center just to be turned around because RMA label was scanned. Product went back to NewEgg now awaiting reshipment. Process is long, customer service smiles and says wait, while asking numerous times if I want to cancel the order. Of course I don’t want the order cancelled, I’d just like my purchased product to arrive in a timely manner, not three weeks later. Just shows not much has changed.
I'm only 4minutes into the video but I'm super grateful in a world where it's difficult to trust media outlets, Gamer's Nexus goes above and beyond to show transparency. You didn't have to do what you did, but you did it to prove you always should. Thanks my dudes keep it up!
Big agree. Independent journalism is the only *real* journalism in an age where truth is skewed into no more than a plaything of corporate interests.
I'm 10 minutes in and I don't think I can watch an hour of this disingenuous CORPsplaining 😁
It's a huge red flag that all of the VP's are basically brand new to their roles. Something weird is happening over at Newegg.
seems like a bunch of cokeheads running that company
I dunno, I have mixed opinions about this.
On the one hand, it's good that a corporation is willing to kick out problematic executives instead of protecting, coddling, and promoting them like Activision-Blizzard, Ubisoft, Quantic Dream, etc..
But on the other hand, it's alarming to deal with a bunch of people sent to deal with the problem where their most helpful answer is, "I don't know if I can do anything for you because I don't know how this works."
As someone that has worked in customer support, seeing a bunch of new faces like this means that all of their previous staff was driven out by the new management at Newegg.
VP is a simple title. There are still 2-3 individuals above them in a typical corporate structure. VPs and Directors move around a lot and hop from company to company, sometimes almost as much as a normal person would.
Not something but most def mobbing and highly toxic work environment. Been there too many times.
This is precisely why I trust your reviews above any other outlet.
I bet Anna has better customer service then Newegg
Indeed, but I'm sure Steve would be the first to say to watch several channels and never rely on only one. Thou canst have other gods than Tech Jesus ;).
@@goffe2282 GN - fights for the people, takes the fight directly to neweggs office.
LTT - Ad bLoCk iS pIrAcY
How do you know they're telling you the truth? Conflict and mistakes is what these guys run on. This is gold for them, made up issue or not. They're going to lie to you like anyone else would.
@@justin-time5880 You're making a lot of assumptions there pal, including about me.
Even I was nervous watching this. This is true reality TV. And I'm surprised how well this turned out. It's inspiring to see a relatively-small UA-cam channel make such a positive change.
Right. They took him seriously. 2 VPs and 2 Directors at the meeting. They seriously cared to hear out gamer nexus
@@PEZ1514 well it was pretty embarrassing situation to be fair. Manager is not gonna cut it lol
Why? With everything that happened, gn had the upper hand, to say the least.
If I were either of those 4 guys I would have been SWEATING, trembling in my pants coming into this, and you can feel it.
Steve had 0 reason to be nervous. He had nothing to lose. Newegg did.
Damn that was so painfully corporate. Right down to the manager taking the meeting off topic immediately so that they could have the power frame.
He tried expressing his Beta Male power and failed miserably.
Yeah, totally. It was a sign of things to come. I honestly felt like I heard nothing but corporate rhetoric from these guys - which is what they are trained in, and what they were hired for. In short companies do poorly in customer service when they hire corporate types who are corporation focussed, rather than customer focussed. It's why start ups are usually so much better, then they reach a certain size and start to change. Once they're listed on the stock exchange, it's all over for customer service, unless their entire business model revolves around ratings and independent sellers like Amazon. eBay etc.
It was lol, I'm in corporate so it's all too familiar. Creating or shifting away framing is business as usual (BAU), most don't even realize they do it, it's just the culture of cover-your-ass (CYA) and blame displacement. There was a lot of insincere "yes we made a mistake" speeches too, but the real essence is, corporates struggle with trying to fix anything, there is too much politics, conflicting agendas and self-interest. Most of my life I was in startups, so when I first joined a corporate I thought I was gonna kill myself. But you can just not accept the bullshit and I do interrupt people a whole lot to make them get to the point and be accountable for their defined role, which btw, makes you the 'bad guy' :P
He cut Eric off, my man didn’t deserve that
@Brent Smith It feels artificial and practiced to a painful degree.
Steve is such an absolute undisputed OG. I couldn't hold my ground this hard while also being polite. I don't know many people who could, if anyone at all.
1 hour and 13 minutes of pure corporate drivel and damage control. Not that I blame the guys Newegg sent to the slaughter - looks like every single one of them is either a new hire or only just recently appointed to their current position. Doesn't really look good for Newegg when your entire "senior VP" team are essentially brand new. Looks to me like Newegg is a rotating door for staff.
At this point I really do think Newegg is just putting up with GN's crusade because it's currently a hot topic. Give it a few weeks/months until it dies down, and they won't care. They even tried to go back on their word to Steve when they initially said GN could record the entire interview, but then 24 hours later changed their minds? Like, really? You're going to publicly contradict yourself like that? What an absolute shambles.
I hope Newegg can pull through this and improve, but it's really not looking good at this point.
I dunno - there was some PR speak, sure, but also some surprising specifics! The fact that the person who accepts / rejects the RMA does so based on 9 form-based yes-or-no answers about the item from the person at the warehouse was both enlightening and horrifying. I can't imaging how you could expect to get a good outcome out of that.
The guy on the left has been with the company 19 years
They are all VPs though.
Their times at the company are:
6 months.
3 years.
1 month (but 20 years experience).
19 years.
I dunno. Doesn't seem strange to me. Lots of big companies rotate executives to constantly try to become more effective.
I disagree about the statement newegg sent newhires to the slaughter
yea definitely corporate speech, but what else would you expect? damage control is the exact things they need to do rn
the stuff are all high ranking VPs. corporates at the size of newegg have constant rotation of those positions. people don't tend to be vp of customer service for too long
Thing is though, there's nothing they can really do in the short term to prove anything. Regardless of what they said or did, they'd have kept this reputation. I don't disagree that they definitely tried to pull some shady stuff with the walking back of the interview policies, but at the same time, the only way for them to prove themselves to anyone without the cynicism kicking into overdrive at this point is for them to prove themselves over time.
I remember 10 years ago when New Egg and TigerDirect were staples in the computer build world. Crazy how times have changed
NEW owners from China.
I remember buying most of my stuff from TigerDirect years ago.
I shopped at CompUsa and Fry's
Yep both Newegg and TD are China-owned now. Which is fine if their quality was consistent, but its not.
What other options are there besides Amazon in 2024?
@@ChairmanMeow1 The fact that they're a Chinese company has nothing to do with the level of quality and customer service. Plenty of American companies, and companies from any country end up having these issues, especially once they grow large enough and focus more on short term profits than long term customer retention. Because that's really what the issue was at the end of the day - their policies conflicting with the specific duties of each employee meeting quotas. The more returns accepted and/or the fewer RMAs processed each day means less profit for the company. Dealing with this backlog and issuing refunds did cut into Newegg's profits but they were forced to do it once it got exposed or they would face even greater losses in profit. Welcome to Capitalism. It's all about maximizing profit in whatever way you can.
I esp. love the part at the beginning ( 5:02): "It's really not fair to just attack without giving the opportunity to improve, because then there's never any incentive for the subject, even though it screwed up, to improve." - definitely not enough of this attitude in the world today. Pretty good interview- thanks for being a consumer advocate and continuing to push the industry to get better!
Definitely an odd thing to say. The opportunity to improve occurred many times in the past. Sometimes a slap to the face is required in order to wake up.
I find the opportunity for honest businesses to replace the scummy ones much more valuable.
There is no reason why Newegg should get extra leniency that denies other businesses a chance to win the customers they mistreated.
@@christophersavignon4191 Newegg is too big to be replaced overnight. Like Steve said, if Newegg falls most people will be stuck with Amazon, not a batch of new, honest businesses.
Things happen, and if things improve good job, but not just to yell that it happened in the first place.
@@Cuuniyevo
Nobody is talking about replacing it overnight. And no, there are other competitors, just not amazon-sized ones. Nobody is stuck with them either way.
Can I just say I really appreciate how you kept nailing them on KPI and going to bat for the frontline employees? You’re awesome Steve, never change
50:10 At the company I work at, we have a policy that if we're going to tell a customer "no" to something, the person delivering the message to the customer also has to be a person with the authority to say "yes."
That is a good policy. Hopefully there are enough people with that authority, a lot of companies have a problem with too much red tape, and issues needing approval having to crawl their way to the top of the ladder.
@@COMMANDandConquer199 We just don't have a lot of barriers or red tape to get to those people. A front line person can just pick up the phone and call the necessary person or shoot them an email and get a prompt response.
The Fellow at new egg has it backwards at 33:08 he says "Its always from the bottom up"
I think he meant to say: “a fish rots from the head down”
I kind of rolled my eyes when out of the 4 dudes 3 were pretty much barely a few months and years with the company...That just screams insane turnover rates. Probably the root of the problem. Once they realize it's a sinking ship everyone jumps...
Y E P and theyre C level or close to it which is never something you see anyone get with under 10-15y at a firm crazy
That's the first and only thing I got out of their introduction. And it usually indicates a range of things, which would indirectly explain Steve's issue.
My impression as well. They are new, don't have the real connection/touch yet with what's going on below deck and they have to own and clean up bullshit some previous guy left for them.
@@Synflood-dot-txt they're not really C-level, a couple of them are VPs which is still upper management but not company leadership or board-level.
Yes, BUT new guys aren't the ones who created the current process. A mess like this takes years to create. Well intentioned KPI's often drive unwanted behaviours. These guys have the PERFECT opportunity to do a top-down/bottom up review and changes.
If it cant/doesn't get fixed now (and this will take 3-6 months easily) - then I'll have no hope for them
What Steve did here, companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to get from consultants and most of the time it's just a spreadsheet. This is pure gold for any company looking to improve customer support and they got it for free. Crazy
Yeah and the question is whether Newegg will take heed or remain frozen in ego-land.
yeah, they got free insight from GN
@@Chyllbacca Of course they won't. They're Chinese owned.
They didn't get it for free. They paid the price of their reputation which was severely damaged during this whole ordeal. However the best thing for Newegg to do now is to take this advice to heart and come out the other side a better company.
In this situation that's like saying "Hey look, you have a solid gold hand!" after they sliced off said hand due to their own incompetence. I really hope Newegg improves after this. My opinion is leadership in the RMA department has been left to do what they want for far too long. Execs never paid much attention other than it wasn't a complete black hole financially.
GN are the epitome of excellent, proper journalism
If only local everyday news was this transparent...
As an "exec", who grew up through the ranks, I HATE dithering Corp Speak (I literally found myself autonomically wincing & looking away at times). "Please tell me how we can EXCEED EXPECTATIONS so I can KEEP THAT ON MY RADAR"... I mean, I get he was new and super nervous, but that (and sooo many other phrases) is a sign that their leadership (c-suite) is prioritizing hiring leaders who 'talk executive pretty'. Not one of them said "I've gone down and worked the RMA return line this week to really get a sense of how the folks are doing, how the processes are working, and how I can best help them". Poor leaders act as if "we wrote a process, why dont they (worker bees) just follow it?!". The reasons, overwhelmingly are always 1.) Manager and workers aren't connected as humans trying to help each other, org charts/power matter more than clarity, feedback, and getting to a shared understanding 2.) Management has no idea what the real "at the coal face" struggles are (but firmly believe they do... in reality they just know how it effects their usually fabricated kpis) 3.) People have lost the plot on WHY they're all there. Its not to please some boss or shareholder, its not to "meet a kpi". It should ideally be that they can earn a decent living WHILE contributing to something they care a lot about. The company needs to provide a service to the world that they passionately believe people want/need. Leaderships job is to gain clairty, build a supportable consensus, and remove friction/burden from the folks that actually do the work. I'm not trying to vilify any of the leaders in that room. Unfortunately corporate culture breeds those behaviors. Incentives drive behaviors. I'll say this, I've ordered tens of thousands of dollars from Newegg over 20+ years. I strongly want there to be healthy small(er) competitors to Amazon. I think I'm so pissed about this because I used to love that company. I really truly hope they have made a lot of progress. But I'm afraid from that video that they are the fish in the fish bowl and they don't see it. Nice work Steve, that had to be super hard and uncomfortable.
This sounded like a bunch of corporate level executives patting themselves on the back for a meeting with their "valued customers " Steve you carried yourself very well through this, and you didn't allow them to blow you over with canned corporate responses. We all appreciate everything you do.
Looking forward to see what comes of this.
Oh to be a fly on the wall for the conversations that happened after steve left the building...
That's the nature of the beast. As someone who used to work in corporate, this went well.
@@utubepunk yep. Same here
You're never going to meet with a room of execs and get 'straight talk'. I'm nothing near C-Suite, but I work with these types of folks in my own job every day. Especially on camera, especially knowing it's going to be released, there was actually a refreshing amount of honesty from the people in this room.
I still think Newegg is trash in 2022, but I'll keep an eye out to see if they actually implement improvements here.
Those type of guys ruin company's eventually. All they care about is profits
I appreciate that you quickly hit the probable nail on the head. There's no point having excellent processes, if there's insufficient time allowed to properly execute those processes by the staff on the shop floor. I've experienced this consistently in organisations (the bigger they are, the worse this is). Middle managers who're simply there to punch down, whilst brown nosing the upper management, rather than taking the criticisms from the shop floor and hitting the upper managers with them, so that resolutions can be sought and implemented.
There seems to be a culture of "I don't want to hear problems, just do what I'm telling you", which doesn't make the problems non existent, just turns them into ninja issues that'll strike when you're down and kill with a thousand cuts.
Once you’re large enough to have middle la management. Your processes downfalls will start falling through the cracks.
Was thinking the same thing, I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of there problems are due to too much pressure on the bottom level employees
@@3gg23 Indeed, it's most evident when decision makers/strategists are disconnected from the shop floor and simply use the numbers and intuition based on reports (written by people who need to look good for bonuses/promotions/job security (lol)). They see the work's being completed despite staff cutbacks and increased market share, without seeing that the staff are stretched thin on normal days, forgetting that busy days means over-extention and therefore mistakes - which are what the customers remember and tell others about.
Of course, this just focuses on the negatives for the business from severe stress, what's worse is the cost to the human lives that stress causes, thus we see higher rates of anxiety, depression, suicide and domestic abuse in countries where these practices are the norm rather than exception.
I love that Steve always goes in super respectful and professional. Makes him a force to be reckoned with when keeping these corporations honest.
i hope he got paid consulting fees for his troubles ! there are people whom are paid 6 figures or more for what he s doing in this video ...
@@calgar42k Exactly why these companies should be kissing Steve's ass, 'cause the guy is doing this for the love of tech.
@@calgar42k i men steve is the one that chose to go there to do an interview...why would they pay him for his own choice
@@weebjesus6077 why because it s a PR stunt allowing the company to explain /reedem itself toward their customer base ,as well as free counseling on how to establish a proper customer support service you d be surprised how expensive the simplest things can be for a company when they lack an enlightened management ! recently switched job and i was stunned how grossly managed the company was ,boss was open to my suggestion profit went up 8 % in 6 months ,customers satisfaction went up 17 % !
@@calgar42k sure bud. You can barely type on a keyboard properly lmao
Hey Steve! Really hope we get an update, seems like this is still a problem people are having. It's been a year now, maybe it's time? Incredible work, by the way.
They probably realized that it's pointless making a fuss about it because the bad publicity only improves their metrics anyway, and NewEgg will just put their politician hats on again whenever you talk to them.
Just stop buying from NewEgg. I haven't bought from there in like 5 years and I'm doing fine.
Takes serious cajones to rip these guys apart then go sit in a room with their executive team afterward & calmly explain why they deserved it. Class act, GN. Keep doing this kinda stuff it's cool.
I hope they do thermaltake next
They are just a bunch of corporate middlemen weasels trying to justify their jobs. They aren't powerful, they are punks cashing a paycheck.
cojones*
@@carletonrutherford1799 "6 months", "1 month".. How are these people at such high positions in the company when they don't have experience WITHIN the company?
like holy shit lmao they have 'experience' but it sure as hell isn't with the company they're currently working
@@normified This is normal in most companies I have worked once they get above a certain size. Places think that if you have been a supervisor at a business you can be a supervisor/manager in a completely unrelated field. Same with if they see a college degree in many cases even if unrelated to the job they believe that to be a qualification over someone with real life experience in that field. Then you have a BIG BIG problem with nepotism.
That 4v1 would have been so difficult, I've been in a similar situation with executives of a larger company. It is very difficult to keep your composure in these situations.
He did pretty good for being in the spotlight like that tbh. You can hear that he's a little nervous and hesitant with some of his talking points but he still gets his point across well and was pretty direct with the execs.
You mixed something up. It's 1 vs just 4...
@@ThrashingBasskill he's not in there with them, they're in there with him.
@@b08m4rt1n Exactly hahahaha
The fact that you were able to facilitate this at all is insane, let alone how far you were able to take it and how transparent you've been. You've taken on and stood your own against a multi-billion dollar corporation and wasn't intimidated by their obvious attempt to bulldog you with their pile of CEOs/directors. You're an inspiration!
A couple of videos with 1 million plus views in a couple of days will have the effect!
I didn't get that impression at all (the bulldog attempt). There was a clear lack of bravado or any other intimidation tactic. I think it was a decent mix of people from the relevant departments.
That said, it still takes a significant amount of guts to challenge a company MUCH larger than yourself! You should still be inspired!!!
Newegg's profits are certainly NOT those of a multi-billion dollar corporation. Profits are very small. I wouldn't hold stock in that company!
Haha, newegg, a mult-BILLION dollar "corporation" - yeah, that's funny - they're so big and great, half these people here have been there for a month or a couple of months. Sure sign of a BS company that's in severe damage control mode even before this whole fiasco started - bring in a new bunch of scapegoats to take the fall
They have a revenue stream of 2.7 billion a year, probably what the poster was alluding to (obviously not worth multi billions)
I love how Steve is actively puttin pressure on them and asking the hard questions rather than letting them spew out sanitized corpo speech bs
I’m completely blown away by this video. Genuinely hopeful for this hobby & the overall integrity of scientific reporting. It’s just so empowering to see someone come at a situation like this with an objective point of view, using data and keeping it fair for both sides. This is the one source I trust for PC building reviews and industry insights. Time after time again you’ve shown the full unbiased situation and used data to make a recommendation. Let’s hope NewEgg is able to see us (your viewers and likely old customers of NewEgg back in the day) and re focus its business to make those policies become actions. Just blown away, thanks for all the years of content. This hard work doesn’t go unnoticed.
Thank you so much for the support, YodaHub!
@@GamersNexus unfortunately they are owned by China.
This whole thing comes across as Steve caring more about NewEgg's customers than NewEgg.
newegg should crack and spill up like a old egg
"This whole thing comes across as Steve caring more about NewEgg's customers than NewEgg" - That's not really a high bar to surpass. That bar is so low a cockroach couldn't fit under it.
I mean, yeah, it's Steve. Tech Jesus.
@@williamlazenby314 right lol.
@@williamlazenby314 right lol.
Let's be honest. A "normal" customer that doesn't have millions of followers WOULD NEVER get the opportunity to even talk to ANY of those execs. When you have this kind of following, they have to address things or their business would surely suffer. It's pretty sad that people have to go this route just for a business or organization to be like.. "Yea, we messed up."
Bro why would they waste their time on every random person who asks to see them? That's not their job, that's the PR departments job that's the entire reason PR departments exist. Executives are talking to Steve because there's really no other option, it would be disrespectful and a spit in the face to have Steve talk to some rando pr guy and nobody else
Steve, I’d be intimidated on this what you did, facing four top Newegg execs. is crazy. You have some balls, I never really watched GN content until the Intel benchmarking BS that you covered and went up on your own again and went to go and challenge them. As a consumer i really appreciated that a lot. Thanks for the teams effort at GN and yeah I’ve ordered a GN mouse pad from the store. Top content always!
I was nervous and really felt the pressure to do the right thing for the audience. I don't suspect this will happen often, but do think I'll get better with each incident. We spent a lot of time evaluating how we did so we can keep improving on these rare pieces. Thank you for the kind words!
I guess its true that drama brings in new subscribers but this is good drama that actually benefits us.ive watched GN for years cuz i believe this channel is more to the truth of products no bs when i need to know about computer parts and tech.i feel its more about truth and us instead if making money being bribed by companies from youtubers👍good job Steve and GN
Should have been 1-1 with the highest level English speaking employee.
This was distasteful and pathetic
"performed subpar, met expectations but those werent high."
I feel like that sums up the entire situation perfectly both the interview and also all stuff previously.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 💜 Aishite.Tokyo/shizumi?💜private s*x
#ライブ配信の再編ありがとうです!#この日のライブ配信は、#かならりやばかったですね!1#万人を超える人が見ていたもんね(笑)#やっぱり人参最高!#まさかのカメラ切り忘れでやら1かしたのもドキドキでした!#今後は気を付けないとね5). .
!💖🖤❤#今後は気をライブ配信の再編ありがとうです!#この日のライブ配信は、#1万人を超える人が見ていたも ん(#笑)#やっぱり人参最高!#まさかのカメラ切り忘れでやら1かしたのもドキドキでした #今後は気をライブ配信の再編ありがとうです!( #笑)#垃圾
To paraphrase Peter Ustinov, “They have set themselves extremely low standards, which they then fail to live up to”
This interview was throughoughly unconvincing for me, despite GN and Steve's best efforts here to give them a chance they really do seem to be blowing smoke up his ass.
Thats their job. And honestly, i don't think ill ever go back to newegg, even if they do change their policies.
it will be interesting to see if they DO have a follow up meet, I will give them the benefit of the doubt till then ( i cant use them coz i live in NZ)
We will have to see but I feel like people listening to “professional speak” makes most inclined to distrust them.
There needs to be a sit down with the higher up on the food chain people. So these are new employees that are going to chucked under the bus by newegg. Pre-programmed ansers.
@@allanlansdowne340 2 of them are Vice Presidents of the specific areas affected? Seems pretty high up.
This is amazing Steve, it's also so awkward lol. I have these meetings all the time with execs that don't care about anything but making money and lie through their teeth to the public on terms of their company policy. Your constant pressuring the issues to keep them on point was so great. You make a great investigator
I have vendor selection influence over pretty high budgets and this interview did not convince me to delete Newegg from my blacklist.
It was a good example of corporate diplomacy. Diplomats talk a lot but concessions are usually tiny and change little on the next day. They did not commit to anything because they don’t have the authority to do so. It is clear they were empowered to do very little. I heard direct legal statements mentioned.
Newegg continues to fail to understand what the words “please don’t shop Newegg” mean to their revenue when said by GN’s subscribers. We don’t just buy for ourselves. We buy for major corporations as well.
The COO needed to be in the room. This issue is above VP level. However, he will debrief the VP of Global Ops by proxy.
55:23 exactly! You did really great, Steve, swimming through all the "oh, we are sorry, we are gonna do better". And thank you for being so calm and not transforming this into some tabloid scandal.
At this point journalism like Steve's is the exception, so I get companies are used to basically dealing with yellow hacks. Steve's raising the bar on both sides of the aisle - company response & investigative journalism.
I heard someone say actions matter. That is it.
Never an I in any of their garble. We ,our,they
Steve, you are a legend and your integrity and unwavering commitment to the community is appreciated so much.
Props to the Newegg team for submitting themselves to the court of public opinion and judgement. No one is perfect, maybe this could be a turning point where Newegg slowly navigates the long road and becomes the standard for customer service? Why not.
the board members seemed pretty nervous, and a few were only recently put in their positions. i imagine they were scared for their positions and attempting the best PR talk they could muster
i almost feel bad for them
i dont envy having a 1v4 confrontation but NG pulled it off pretty well
you and the whole team at GN are legends, I felt nervous watching this, like I was going into a job interview lol. Thank you for making the tech space better.
They tried to control the narrative and narrow the scope right off the bat, and Steve was having none of it haha awesome. 👌
They were immediately testing him. Which to me seems a little disrespectful.
@@LordZordid Yep, corporate goons.
Great job guys. I really appreciate everything the team does for the industry and consumers. Just increased my patreon.
Thank you!
@be good stop dude.
I reported the spammers comments
@@flying-cacti same! Thanks, too. It only takes a second to do!
GN willing to speak up and cover issues like this is also why I became a Patreon sub too.
I just want to say that you did fantastically as an interviewer. They were definitely trying to give you pr jargon and when you pushed back they seemed to recognize that they couldn't get away with that.
The biggest takeaway from this whole experience is Newegg only reacts when they are pinned against a wall. They cave to public pressure (or a lowering of their stock price) and in reality are not genuinely interested in supporting customers. Everything that has been changed/updated in their procedures is being done to mitigate damages. Let’s see what customer service looks like in a year.
Will you be giving them another chance?
@@lancemcque1459 I will have to wait and see how Newegg handles this in the long run. However, everything in life is a teachable moment and I’m not opposed to giving people second chances.
Yep. Damage control. I had the same issue with memory not what I ordered, and it took about 2 months to resolve, and in the meantime it was denied as wrong item returned. I even did an unboxing video like I do with anything over $20.
Honestly, the fact that they even took up the offer to sit down in a public video speaks of *something*. Not sure what tho.
Yeah... but certain companies didn't even bother to react. Like at all. Cough *gigabyte*
This is so frustrating to watch. I had been a customer of Newegg of thousands of orders before 2 years ago. I made a purchase of a $4k pc as a result of lack of RTX3090 access any other way. When it arrived, it was damaged in shipping. I spent 6 weeks trying to get me money back after the RMA was disallowed. They claimed they sent the machine back to me when the RMA was refused. They kept my money and the pc. This has been an issue for longer than two years. Clearly.
**Edit: I know Newegg reads these comments. Execs, go look up my name and dispute any of this. You gave money back to some users( probably less than 1% of those who were damaged economically). Interesting that 2 people in the comments section for my reply have had the same exact issue on almost the same pc/parts(ABS). This is sounding more deliberate every second.
Did you file a chargeback with the bank?
In European Union you can send any product in 14 days after delivery. Without any reason. No question asked. USA is any different? :O
@@kaapuuu Yeah I'm not sure what if any consumer protection laws exist for returns, but almost all return policies are decided by the seller.
It's stuff like this why I don't order pc parts online. I make almost 2 hour drive 1 way to buy my pc parts. Most pc retail stores have closed. Outside of micro center
@@kaapuuu Yea US sucks for this because of that. We have very little recourse they can refuse refunds and also refuse to send back the item which is proof that it arrived defective.
fucking amazing that this happened, I already had a high level of respect for you guys but after this? you guys are by far the best journalists in any area!
Agree!!!
if you respect these guys you must not respect yourself
@@rstidman really? why shouldnt I respect them? and why the ad hominen attack?
On god
@@cmurderfrumpbottoniv8647 some rando with nothing to do. Don't about that guy, fam. Tech Jesus for President.
I know I'm late to this video but finally got back to it. I love how he dragged his 100lbs balls in there and literally laughed at some of their excuses, didn't stand down, pushed back, gave them solutions they didn't want to hear but made them hear it anyways, everytime they tried to pivot he cut them off and forced it back to the point and kept the pressure on them the entire time. He's such a kind hearted guy but obviously shows that he can takes the gloves off and that is rare as fuck. He went in there to fight for the community to a degree magnitudes higher than ever never seen by anyone. This is definitely why Steve and his team are respected and grown so fast. There still one of the youngest youtube tech channels compared to the "veterans" on here and it just goes to show his commitment and integrity, as he did when calling out even Linus. But yeah, I remember the impact GX had from this interview and the waves it sent through the internet on twitter, reddit, discord, etc)
Also, props to Andrew!
Thank you so much for doing this Steve! I was able to call Newegg customer service referencing this video and they refunded a previously denied restocking fee for an order I had returned over a year ago. Customer service was immediately aware of the video and processed the $315 refund no questions asked. Amazing!
Props to Newegg for following through, most corporations wouldn’t
There must be a path to redemption. Has anyone sat down with the veeps of Amazon? Of UA-cam? This "black box" modern corporate model is a plague and must be punished by alert consumers.
_Caveat Emptor_
Couldn't help but laugh at the fact they sent a couple VPs and directors who haven't been with the company very long or are new to their role. I feel bad for them, high turnover I imagine?
Sadly what happens when the ship starts to sink.
I was thinking the same thing, "Wow, none of them have been working there very long."
@@Celeron525 I'm wondering if we're going to have Newegg to discuss a year from now.
@@countzero5150 Im glad that this was a red flag for yall too! The first time I bought something at Newegg was in 2006 and I was hoping to see at least a few people from those times
Probable. Newegg and others like it are absolutely in decline as behemoths like Amazon keep expanding.
The guys who take these jobs either are drinking the kool-aid thinking they turn the ship around or they just could find anything else and take whatever golden parachute they were contractually promised and run when the ship inevitably sinks
It was painfully clear within the first five minutes of the interview that they are in full PR/damage control mode. They tried to get you lost in a nonsensical, repetitive, and reciprocal PR word jungle. There were a lot of carefully chosen words and corporate jargon from their side and none of it felt genuinely human or like they actually care about the underlying problems. It felt like a press briefing.
As Andrew said it felt like they were more worried about the fact they got caught and the hot water that put them in than actually fixing the problems. The meeting seemed focused on making you (Steve) personally happy, while the concern for the rest of their customers was merely tangential at best.
At the end of the day, this incident affected their bottom line and as corporate executives that's ultimately what they care about. That was the point of this meeting to them. To save face and save their revenue. It seems like its more about this single incident to them than a focus on the bigger picture. The big problem, as you mentioned, is that they are too disconnected from reality and too far above the "boots on the ground" employees that actually do the work that they don't understand that fixing these bottom up problems and focusing on said bigger picture is the best way to make them the money they care so much about.
Maybe I misunderstood the point they were trying to make, but one thing that really irked me throughout the interview was how they kept trying to reinforce that "we're a small company, we don't have 500,000 employees" and it really had "just a small indie dev" meme vibes to it. You can't be a multi-national corporation and one of the most prominent electronics suppliers in the market and then try and use the "we're just a small company and we're still learning" excuse. We can see right through that and it doesn't fly. You've been around for 21 years Newegg. You have thousands of employees. You don't get to use the "small company still learning" excuse.
I doubt Newegg will see this, but one suggestion I would like to make is for your high level execs (including everyone in attendance at this meeting) spend a week or two "in the trenches" and work in these departments. Spend a couple days working the RMA line. Spend a couple working the Customer Service desk. Spend a couple days picking product in the warehouse. If you have an actual retail location, go spend a few days on the sales floor. Work in the sales department for a couple days.
Don't just visit with the supervisors for 10 minutes. Actually work in these departments. Shadow an employee for the day. Do it Undercover Boss style if you have to. Get a better idea of what your ground-floor employees and departments actually do and this will help you understand where the disconnect in policy vs procedure that kept being brought up in this meeting actually is and how to fix it.
Another thing you could do, is just try using your own Customer Service. Call in, pretend to be a customer with an issue, and see how it goes. Linus Media Group does these kinds of undercover investigations and it really helps expose the issues a lot of these Customer Service departments have. Doing your own similar, internal, undercover investigation of your own department could yield some fantastic, and eye opening, results. When they kept suggesting "just ask for a manager" it became very clear none of them have had to call a customer service line in at least the last 15-20 years. Its so frustratingly hard to actually get in touch with a manager these days, not just at Newegg but everywhere, that its almost pointless to even ask. The reps just give you the runaround, and I can only assume its because "# of escalations" is a tracked KPI metric for the reps and the fate of their job is tied to these kinds of metrics.
I do think its great they actually listened to Steve and implemented his suggestions in a pretty timely manner. We'll see if they keep following through on changes and improvements, or if they fall right back into their old rut once this whole thing gets far enough away in the rear view mirror.
Steve, I look forward to future updates. This saga has me enthralled.
EDIT: I removed this statement "and are worth $390 million in assets (in 2009 according to google) and made $2.7 billion in 2016." because, as pointed out by another commenter, its vague and potentially inaccurate. Its also not relevant to the point I was making. However, I wanted to keep it visible in the comment for clarity and transparency.
Nah this is just how corperate meetings go. This is how these big companies function.
@@OverIoadTV Wtf are you even trying to say? He's 100% right.
@@MandoMTL I'm saying this isn't some wild damage control pr mode. This is how these people speak in any big corporate meeting.
That doesn't contradict what he said. It's still PR speak, just that they're always doing it. Being vapid all the time doesn't excuse being vapid some of the time.
@@OverIoadTV You're both 100% right. This is status quo in management, AND it's because executives are soulless PR goons with waaay too big of a paycheck who spend 90% of their time using jargon to gaslight issues and inflate their fellow execs' egos.
Much respect to what you do. People cant change the world, but you def made a difference by standing up for your community, followers and viewers. This is amazin
The Newegg execs have fallen into one of the traps of the managerial mindset: They're working desperately not to have a bad reputation rather than working steadily not to deserve one. The first is a matter of saying soothing and/or confusing words to manipulate customers into calming down and getting back to their shopping; the second is a matter of ethical responsibility, meeting the expectations of their customers to be treated fairly and receive real value for their money.
That would cost profit margin, and apparently they're not willing to sacrifice enough there. Now watch for a glut of fraudulent returns taking advantage of this and worsening the problem.
Managers are not responsible for their decisions. They just go to another company and ruin that one too. No one puts company losses or damages in their CV.
Lots of feel good words like “great customer experience”
@@Sunlight91 no but they do put prior employment contact info down on a resume
its a matter of treating your workers well so they care about the job they do because they care about the company they work for.
Massive respect to Steve and GN team. being there in their meeting room, their enviroment, with people ready to intimidate you and trying to take control of the situation rather than willing to do whaever it takes to commit and improve, in a 1 vs 4 scenario, it takes alot of courage to do what you are doing /did, you are really doing something greater than it seems for this whole PC/Tech community. thanks a lot mate !
Honestly, it's not particularly intimidating or adversarial as you might think. This is how meetings often go in a corporate environment, and it's how things get done. As a matter of fact, were I in Steve's shoes, I would be grateful they went to the trouble to ensure they have everyone there who may be necessary to adequately answer any questions and speak to any concerns that may be raised.
I think what’s most concerning. Is that it had to get to this point for things to get resolved. If that motherboard had landed on any normal customer. Nothing would have changed. The rma would have been rejected. And they would have carried on. It’s just by chance it landed on someone that had a platform. They only became concerned about a customers experience because it was effecting their reputation because it landed on someone that confronted them on a global level.
Evil steps in where good men fail to act.
This is absolutely correct. If it had been you or I, we'd have been screwed. Thank God for GN putting these shortcomings under a microscope. I just think he's wasting his time with these people. To be honest it all just seems like corporate lip service to quiet GN up.
@@t.dubbya7000 best to do something and hope change will come from it than do nothing and expect change anyway. If one gives up at the beginning because it may be a waste of time, nothing will ever be achieved or changed. We can influence our actions, not our outcomes. Always focus on the action and hope for the best. Or you will fall into nihilism, despair and depression. That is not a way to live
@@t.dubbya7000 personally I think too much damage has been done. I don’t live in the states but if I did I would be actively avoiding this company if this is what it takes for them to start treating their customers fairly. You could see them squirm when Steve mentioned about coming back for a follow up and looking at the rma line up. How many hundreds and thousands of people have been screwed over from a rejected rma. Only now they want to fix it because one landed on Steve. Shady company imo.
@@hovercroft Yeah I'm not buying from newegg anymore. For me its amazon or ebay now (even though I know both kinda stink)
First off great job Steve. The biggest takeaway that I got from it was that most everybody you spoke with had not been with the company that long. They were all scared for their own necks and did not want to commit. Like most people in this world I think Newegg is an awesome company that has in the past been very good with customer relations. It is sad to see they fell down. I'm glad to see someone call them out for it
That also went about as I expected. They made a few token gestures while ignoring the real problem. Every time Steve brought up KPIs the execs were silent. When Steve mentioned rigid guidelines, they deflected. They're not interested in change; they're interested in making this go away. If Newegg really cared about customer service, instead of adding to the scripts they'd loosen them. They'd change KPIs to be more satisfaction-based and less numbers-based. They'd educate their employees on what they're doing and empower them to make good decisions. The route they're taking will lead to more of the same. More rigid guidelines. More mostly useless "yes/no" questions on a questionnaire employees don't have time to fill out properly. Extremely disappointed in Newegg. Thank you to Steve for holding Newegg accountable and being fair with them.
Satisfaction is just a number too. It's called Net Promoter Score, and it's a bane for CS agents worldwide, because the problems the company has is taken against the agent.
To run a company efficiently, things really need to be turned to a yes/no questions. It's called a flowchart. If CS agents are given free reign on refunds, fraudsters will run the company dry.
Used to work in CS before the fire nation's plague attacked.
KPI's legit made the job unfeasible while being honest to the customers
You get what you measure.
@@triadwarfare By giving CS agents scripts and not letting them deviate from those scripts is called; de-skilling. You're commodifying humanity. A more productive approach to those of us who want skilled knowledgeable people selling stuff, is to incentivise positive customer feedback, where: you're bonus pay/perks are awarded through positive customer feedback, not how ridgely and doggedly you can toe the management line because ultimately, customers return for reasons other than how well a CS agent stuck rigidly to the script, and by taking that approach, the company is just throwing good money after bad by having to employ multiple layers of managers to monitor how well CS agents are sticking to the script.
A recipe for financial hell my friend, but sadly all too pervasive in companies that employ lack-lustre middle managers who know the price of everything, and the value of nothing!
Dunno if anyone else feels this way, but when a company moves their customer services to...twitter...I'm immediately appalled. How about have your own damn site and chat, instead of me having to put in my personal details on some random social media chat..? It just feels so extremely unprofessional to me...
Apparently Twitter is "some random social media" and not one of the biggest social media companies in the world.
@@Finaggle That's besides the point. I think they are getting at the fact that Twitter is not designed to be a sophisticated system for facilitating customer communication with a dedicated support team such as Salesforce or ZenDesk, tracking customer requests/issues, etc. Normally a marketing or PR team would be running a company's social media account. You don't really even know who you're speaking with or what their role is at the company when you're just communicating with a faceless Twitter account.
@@Finaggle Twitter is just some random social media as far as I'm concerned. I don't use it and I don't want to. The fact that I have to have one just so company will pay attention to my customer support needs is bullshit.
@@Finaggle Not everyone uses Twitter. I don't order things from Newegg on Twitter. I shouldn't have to reach out in Twitter for customer support.
I do not disagree. However, the benefit (to the customer) of having a Twitter CS account is that the entire internet can see it. Hashtags WORK. I put my Cell service provider on blast on Twitter several years ago. The issue was resolved through DMs, (and I'm a lifelong customer due to that CS,) BUT if it wasn't for my initial @, my issue could and would have been ignored. So it's a two way street.
I've been a CS agent, and now am a business sales executive. I deal with a lot of VP types like these guys, and unfortunately a lot of this in plain English is "Damage control" They're using very specific, very prepared responses, and that's normal in business, but what those responses are designed to do, is deflect from core change, and only intended to wear down GN and the viewers/followers so they walk out of this slightly confused, reasonably appeased and ultimately un-recognized.
From the company side of things, the amount of money, training, and local sourcing for CR's, Warehouse and VP's and most importantly policy changes to actually create the change GN and the community is trying to achieve would bankrupt the company. They can put a bandage on the issue with their small token gestures, but ultimately the company couldn't change if it wanted to.
In closing, I believe the people in this meeting clearly cared, and in their roles would like to make change, however without the "big giant heads" of the company granting them autonomy to create genuine policy changes, unfortunately there won't be much done.
At least there was some token solving of the immediate situation, I'm sure it'll cost NewEgg a few pennies, but the jury is out if there will be any continuous or ultimately realistic changes.
I applaud the GN team for taking this on, it's literally David Vs Goliath in scale.
Yea. Alot of what those 4 are saying is just fluff. I'm already bored 20 minutes in
Come on. This company have a revenue of 7b$ for 1500 employee.
It wouldn't bankrupt them to implement new policies and improve their processes.
It would cost them some money though.
In their eye, it would cost them less to BS their way like they did.
What is sad, is that their short term and assholley view might cost the company its whole reputation, and bankrupt it.
What are those bozoes risking? Pretty much nothing, they'll get some golden parachute, and go leech another company.
@@xmtxx are there any business that went bankrupt because their reputation was destroyed on youtube? not that i know of:( why would happen to newegg? they probably has hundreds of thousands of customers that will have no idea about this channel/the event happenned, and they will continue using it like normal. what i understood with limited knowledge i have and with @kazuka 's point of view is making changes in policies is orders or magnitude more riskier for their stocks and chairmen than having a mere thousands of "loyal" customers stop buying from there and hating online. It is like being an public company is a blessing and a curse.
@@PrivacyEnt that was my thought. what percentage of their customer base are avid viewers of tech-youtube channels? probably not many, but still, GN is doing incredible work and I'm sure with the power of the interwebs, this stuff will spread. Cue the GN grim reaper meme knocking down another door.
@@PrivacyEnt not any that have been bankrupt but many have been dealt real damage to their bottom line at the hands of GN. However miniscule that damage may be it's impressive that a small group of guys can make that impact on a massive company.
I worked at a warehouse once, we had a screen showing how many items we had to process per hour, and how many we're actually processing. Also the productivity had to increase by 2% every month.
I used to work for 6 hours at once, and since I wasn't allowed a break (breaks only if going to work 8 hours) I'd make so many mistakes in the last 2 hours due to being literally unable to think or focus, I'd be on autopilot, completely zoning out, scanning the wrong item, and only realising that it was a mistake a minute later, and sometimes I'd even validate a mistake instead of correcting it because the thinking side of the brain just didn't wanna wake up. It was a weird feeling, I'm usually aware but in there it was so hard to snap back out of autopilot.
All this to say maybe their workers are overworked and also go through autopilot
You didn't really seem nervous for someone who was calling out a company's B.S. in the faces of four of them and on their home field advantage. And boy did you call em out. Well done
Yeah, and Newegg did not give me much faith. It seems like Newegg is only looking at top-down solutions.
It was really interesting that one of them outright said that a single employee was responsible.
They are the ones that should be scared. They all are brand new employees that's company just fucked up hard.
I heard the exact opposite for Newegg. I heard nervousness and fear from everyone except for Steve. What a boss.
I'm 17 minutes in and I can tell from his mannerism and body language that he is nervous, however, rightfully so. Being in a room full of executives *can* put a psychological strain on you which encourages anxiety, nervousness, loss of confidence; especially if you're not used to situations like this. I'm new to this channel but was genuinely curious about this newegg situation. Just going off of comparisons in terms of confidence, etc from his other videos and comparing it to this current situation he's in.
Edit: For clarification, I guess, I'm not disagreeing with you on how newegg has been supplying some horse shit as of late. This is just simply an observation :)
Why would he be nervous? I’m dead serious. Why would any of what you said make him nervous? What a bizarre statement.
Honestly, I don't know how much better the interview could have gone given the nature of the issues. It will be interesting to see where this goes in the next 6-12 months. Great work!
out of all the dog sh1t and bad takes in this comment section, this is the single most underrated and reasonable takeaway Ive seen. +10 for being a normal, intelligent, human. :)
I like how they're answering his questions with answers to questions that weren't asked
Thats how people at this level answer questions. They really have no idea what its like to actually perform the job and its clear there is a divide between the suits and the working people. Fairly common with companies... these guys are just trying to keep their stock holders happy and make this go away. Make no mistake they hate gamers nexus for this.
“If you have nothing to say, say nothing. If you have something to say, say it, no matter what they ask.
“Better still, pay no attention to the question, just make your own statement.
Jim Hacker is a true politician.
@@PressStartOnce Sounds like any of the political debates that happen: Why answer the question asked, when you can go back to your practiced talking points?
He does a good job of being like no this is what I need to know but yeah it's bs that's how you have to interact with people, shouldn't have to try to assert dominance and force the answer to the actual question out of them. Having a partner there to just interrupt and be like that's irrelevant to what's being asked is hugely helpful
I really love this and go steve for having our backs .. i think the biggest thing they could have done was grab people from those departments and actually ask them what happen .. because saying they know people in those departments doesn't make it feel like they truly know what is going on in those departments..
Moral of the story: "You're a random client without any weight or ability to pressure us? We don't really care."
But then: "Wait, you're a famous UA-cam channel dedicated to PC and a celebrity/influencer of sorts? We shall prepare a board meeting to receive you properly."
THIS is the message I get about this company.
This is EVERY corporate company. Care is provided on a "who pays the most" basis. It really does make me despise publicly owned companies, but you gotta live with some demons
This is literally any large corporation unfortunately, Newegg isn't unique in this. Wish it weren't so, but the fact that Newegg agreed to a meeting and actually followed through in the end is commendable on their part imo
That's the same for all big companies. My friend bought from a local store and had a DOA motherboard, they tested it right away on a test bench and confirmed it was toast and handed him a new one.
@@atodaso1668 this is why we try to buy local/privately as often as possible. I won't avoid corporations because quite frankly there's just no way you can do it without being overtly selective about it, which is ridiculous.... Instead, you are better off shopping local as often as you can, and this goes for everything in your life -- local grocery store chains (even larger ones), local hardware stores, electronics shops, eyeglasses (even though they all come from luxotica), literally you name it, try to get it from a one off shop -- you'll have a better experience and a similar or higher quality product in most cases
I mean true, but it gives them better publicity and makes them look better, they dont have a reason to do this with random people lmfao
amazing. that was exactly what i thought of when they said "no filming" and steve said "we'll keep it on the floor". THAT's how you should approach these corpos: don't let them dictate the flow and chip away at small demands.
Been waiting for this. Glad my purchases on the merch store helped this to happen.
Absolutely! Huge help. Thank you so much!
@Lotus F outta here with that spam crap.
@@GamersNexus I will be looking to pick some things up as well for friends or family. Been looking forward to this video all week!
I havent commented here before, yet i feel compelled to say this. Your commitment to getting the best overall experience for consumers is incredibly profound. It is commendable that you will "call out" a company, and then willing sit down with them, and show them how to handle their own business better. I can only suggest, and perhaps you do this already, is that if you havr a sponsor of one of these companies, that you write it into the contract that youll speak openly and honestly, and if a negative occurs, youll allow the business the oppritunity to appropriately handle it. Because as you seem to say, the effecient and effective ways of handling issues is paramount to a busineses longevity and overall success. To be renowned for its simplicity to interact with. We all love amazon, because we trust that we wont get screwed over if we encounter a problem. It just sucks that amazon refuses to unionize
The P.R. is strong in this one. That damage control crew really rehearsed their cue cards. Hats off for exposing these issues.
Exactly. I work in PR, this is exactly how we brief n run through our crisis response.
This damage control, things will not change. Amazon take returns no questions asked full refund on items sold by amazon but not 3rd party sellers. It works on Amazon because I used it once.
You know what, good on them for fronting up and doing the interview, and by all accounts they are moving on some of what was discussed, which is really cool.
I really hope that in a follow up video, rather than just saying "Meets expectations" they can work their way up to a "Better than Dell" award.
Steve et al; this is probably one of the biggest and most important pieces of journalism you guys have done, because it affects literally tens of thousands of people, even more than NZXT and their fire box, or Gigabyte and the explodeyboi boxes, and it is absolutely awesome that you continue to work this hard for US. Congrats on making a truly positive change in this sector.
Shout out to Steve for sticking up for the people in the warehouse
@@JaceFalcon He is exposing NewEgg's horrible consumer practices so that they cannot take advantage of those consumers.
How in the hell is he responsible for the same company's employee satisfaction... do you know stupid that comment is? Unfathomably stupid.
He put in the work for what was right. Get out of here with that nonsense.
Quality service =/= shittier work environment.
I can see why you would think that if you ONLY look at amazon.
What a binary view
Unions
@@JaceFalcon customers wanting the shyt they buy to work and be as described isn't "entitlement", if workers are treated poorly that's on the company not customers
@Jace Flux So as opposed to their company itself being held to account for their gross negligence that is directly leading to the robbery of consumers you are suggesting that we be nice so we don't hurt any feelings? What, do you put Vaseline on your holes before corporations have their way you? Do you thank them when they're done?
There's nothing MORE reasonable than asking that a deal or contract is fulfilled TO THE LETTER. That especially includes purchases. It's called consumer protection and you're lucky to even have it. Don't be so quick to throw it away just because you're a f*cking Carebear (or more likely a shill).
Has Newegg imrpoved at all since this conversation? Fantastic journalism, by the way!