Coleman Gamestop

Michael Heschmeyer

Comp II

Profile

18/09/2019

GameStop: Love it or Hate it

GameStop has long been associated with bad customer service and poor pricing on games. Nevertheless, there are some employees that pride themselves in great customer service, Coleman being one of those.Coleman loves what he does no matter what that may be.

From a young age Coleman loved gaming he remembered his first experiences: “I was at a friends house and we were playing on the N64… when I was 9 or 10 I had a PS2 and played Medal of Honor, Even though I was bad at it.”  He always knew he wanted to work at GameStop, even though they do not hire anyone under the age of 18.  He got a job at a local movie theater, to help get him some spending money.  When he turned 18, he quit his job at the movie theater before he even knew he had the job at GameStop.

From GameStop’s corporate page they talk about building a community, “creating great experiences for our customers and our people, and sharing the magic of gaming.”  (core values) Coleman echo’s their views on building a community, “Building a community of regulars is crucial.”  He also eagerly added, “[I] love to communicate my passions and get people just as excited.” 

            There is a certain stigma around GameStop that has not always been good.Their Circle of Life program where stores are set quotas for various categories of sales: Pre-orders, reward card subscriptions, used game sales and game trade-ins.  The priority, for obvious reasons, is placed on the most lucrative transactions like subscriptions and used games.A report at Kotakuclaims that the program, which emphasizes high-margin used game sales over slim-margin new game sales, has forced employees to lie to customers about what stores have in stock.

            No matter where you work, management is going to want you to push high-margin sales like warranties, subscriptions, or used inventory because the margin on so many other items is incredibly slim.  Poor management can certainly abuse programs like Circle of Life, but obviously not every store or every employee is going to have the same experience.Coleman has seen the good in the circle of life, “

A large portion of GameStop’s sales come from used games, they also sell equipment.  One particular customer did not even know about a limited edition controller until Coleman showed her: “[It gives me a] good feeling to sell the customer the right product even if they did not know it was what they needed.”

GameStop has a special level store, Prestige.  In order to be a Prestige store, that location has to hit a series of goals.  The biggest one is getting positive surveys in which customers say they would recommend that store to a friend.  The GameStop where he woks recently got promoted to Prestige level. Coleman also adds that his store manager told him that “ninety nine percent of the award” was due to his work. 

Coleman does not plan on working for GameStop forever though; saying “[I] got offered a store leader position and turned it down.” His true passion is the outdoors, as he plans to become a park ranger one day. Coleman still loves to play video games, including Player’s Unknown Battlegroundand Fallout, when he can.  He will take the love he shows his customers and the lessons he learned at GameStop wherever he works.