Confronting Newegg Face-to-Face
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มิ.ย. 2024
- We flew out to Newegg's HQ to meet with the company about its egregious customer service shortcomings and to give the company a chance to fix itself -- or dig the hole deeper.
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This interview is UNCUT for full transparency. You can make your own decision on how you feel about Newegg's response (and stick around for our thoughts at the end).
WATCH PART 1, DISCOVERING THE ISSUE: • Newegg Scammed Us
WATCH PART 2, IT GETS WORSE: • Newegg's Shocking Inco...
WATCH PART 3, NEWEGG RESPONDS: • Newegg Responded (Sort...
Full Newegg Saga playlist: • Newegg Scammed Us
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Approaching Newegg
02:50 - Transparency & No-Cut Interview
04:40 - Giving Newegg a Genuine Chance
06:42 - Interview Introduction
08:45 - Addressing the Motherboard in the Room
13:30 - Why Would Anyone Buy from Newegg?
17:17 - Policies Aren't Enacted
21:38 - Internal Operating Procedures
26:03 - Pressure on Lower Employees
28:54 - Individual or Organization Issue
36:24 - Steve's Suggestions (Email Inbox)
45:00 - The Process is the Problem
48:35 - What Will Newegg Do?
54:58 - Steve Speaking Frankly
01:01:35 - Recap: How It Went
01:04:31 - Recap: What Newegg is Worried About
01:06:00 - Recap: Decision-Making Issues
01:09:15 - Some Bad Behaviors
01:11:49 - Final Words
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Host, Research: Steve Burke
Video On-Site: Andrew Coleman
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WATCH PART 1, DISCOVERING THE ISSUE: th-cam.com/video/2fnXsmXzphI/w-d-xo.html
WATCH PART 2, IT GETS WORSE: th-cam.com/video/CL-eB_Bv5Ik/w-d-xo.html
WATCH PART 3, NEWEGG RESPONDS: th-cam.com/video/-wECJJveifw/w-d-xo.html
Full Newegg Saga playlist: Full Newegg Saga playlist: th-cam.com/video/2fnXsmXzphI/w-d-xo.html&list=PLsuVSmND84QtAQc1-VjA5gT5v6ugM1gdZ
That red and black mod mat….. ;)
Cant wait to sit down for this one . Will be a wild ride.
Really gotta get something from you lol
I really love my gn coasters...I think I'll pick up another set when you get them in again!
Also available!!! Gamers Nexus Disposable Tube Socks
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.
@@benjamin9120 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.
"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
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
"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.
@@fignewtenzg809 I was simply defending GamersNexus because @TheBanjoShow
claims that they did nothing special by making the interview uncut. I understand and appreciate their decision. 😎
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 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
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 TH-cam video. The easiest route is social engineering. Worrying about someone filming walking in is paranoia. Real life ain't Oceans 11 🤣
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.
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
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
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
"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.
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 TH-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.
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!
"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.
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.
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.
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.
"We're going to be 100% honest."
Proceeds to spew nonstop corporate bullshit.
That dude needs to go...can't stand people who bend over and take it from a company they work for just cuz they make a decent salary
I am 100% most honest people you meet.
My Father was king of Saudi Arabia he leave me 5 billion dollars. I need your help to get money out of country.
You buy me 4 RTX 3090 from Newegg. That should do it.
No Motherboards!!! They don't want back!!!
Step one of any corporate meeting: Establish Dominance. By telling him what happened instead of answering Steves specific questions on Steves terms he controls the narrative.
The fact that they wanted to start the interview with that kind of a line spoke volumes about how dishonest they were going to be. Generally speaking a pre-emptive qualifier like that means you know you are about to spew some bullshit and are trying to make yourself and the person you are spewing it at believe that you are telling the truth. The next red flag was how Steve was going to start and they wanted to shut him down and start speaking. That told me they were afraid to actually engage in the interview and wanted it to merely be a PR puff piece.
@@somethingsomethingsomethingdar Yup Steve is really smart lol
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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 TH-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
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.
The vibe i'm getting from this is literally "we're sorry we got caught" *does it again*
It's very clear the company lost it's humanity and that unfortunately it really is going in the direction we hoped it wasn't.
You'll probably need to change ownership of the company. If the chinese owner is FIRMLY fixed upon churning customers, then the problem will reappear after awhile. Or Newegg will have to increase prices beyond the inflation rate in order to give the chinese investors their expected profits despite accepting customer returns.
@@animejanai4657
In the age of Amazon, price increases are corporate self-delete (god I hate YT political correctness).
@@manictigerive never had a problem saying suicide in a comment. Especially in this kind of context.
@@Generic_Name_1-1
You think the TH-cam anti-manictiger bot cares about context?
I kid about it being personalized, but I'm definitely one of their "political dissidents". Good thing stricter censorship is all I have to deal with. In China, they just get rid of people like me, people with opinions and ideas.
@@manictiger you're unhinged.
WWLD? .....What would Linus do? Certainly not this. Hats off to you, Steve. You've got a lifelong subscriber.
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.
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.
I used Newegg since 2001. Man, they really went downhill since the beginning.
Love the way you guys are. You don't hide anything straight to the point and give people/companies a chance to explain them selves this is how the world should be
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👍
Deep thanks for everything you do supporting the community, Steve.
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
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.
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.
Great job Steve, great job Gamer Nexus! Standing up for us little guys, for us who have shopped on Newegg for years and who genuinely want Newegg to succeed and do good. Thank you.
You are a legend man! Let me tell you a quick story of mine - i was working as a customer service / support tech which included a variety of work from working on tickets to shipping things and even working with 3rd party repair vendors etc. We were understaffed and overworked. a lot of people made mistake. we complained over and over to management but they wouldnt really wanna hear it, probably because they were trying to save as much money as possible. at some point some people stopped caring about quality of work they put in. I bet you a similar situation happened at newegg. (its happening to a lot of companies)
I can relate so much.
@@wpww3343 yeah a lot of people can relate, some companies stopped caring about their reputation unfortunately. On the outside they might still say it's important but on the inside it's so obvious it's not.
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*
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.
Thank you for all you do for this community. My words cannot convey the positivity i have for you bringing this to light. Companies have to remember that as Customers we have choices and we keep them afloat. This is awesome and please keep up the great work. (Two Thumbs UP)
Wow. This is the type of journalism i LOVE seeing, and supporting for that matter. Steve, you really did a great job and for me, personally, meant a lot seeing someone going after the big answers from the higher ups. Breaking down the lip service walls to get to the meat and potatoes.
Great work, I'm a @GamersNexus sub/supporter forever. BIG UP!
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.
@@bojan6368 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
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.
Been following this series just today. Good shit man. You earned a customer.
I am abolutely stunned. You are one against 5 and stand your ground with hard evidence! I've also been in such a situation before - and let me tell you, it wasn't such a pleasant conversation... If you're a KMU ("small to middle sized company" in german speaking countries - about 300 employees) and you have really big customers (speaking of a supply chain), it's sometimes very hard to stand your ground.
The fact that all of the "higher ups" are new hires definitely speaks volumes to the company. If there are internal issues, employee retainment will be low.
My company hired a new "cool" CIO who tripled IT staff in 6 months, then quit in 12 with his golden parachute ...
those aren't the higher ups. the real higher ups are in a building a few blocks away.
I wonder if they were all aware their corresponding equivalents in other departments were as green as them. Possibly not, realizing the entire management structure consists of people with less than a year on the job would probably throw a lot of red flags.
Yeah I came to say that as well. The "high ranking" people in this video having combined experience of less than 4 years is a yikes..
@@HaitiSpaceAgency LMAO Great assumption. if people switch jobs every 6-12months in Haiti, then that might explain Haiti's great success as a leader in Space exploration.
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 😁
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
i know this is an old video, but just have to say it takes balls to go sit down with a bunch of executives like that and ask difficult questions and call them out when appropriate. most people would just ballwash them and go with whatever they say. props.
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 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.
Youre a role model for me steve, great job at the interview.
You have amazing communication skills.
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.
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.
Thank you Steve, I’m late…. But yea, thanks for doing your absolutely best and have the chops to go face to face and address issues with companies.
After watching this entire saga, SUBBED.
Well done guys!
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.
I like how Steve had the balls to say he really didn’t hear any concrete changes at the end of this.
Balls? He is just crying all over the place with nothing to lose. Only gains views and publicity. Balls....
@@DisKeda How dumb are you? Are you the CEO of Newegg?
@@DisKeda Also what do you expect him to do? Fortnite floss on the table?
@@DisKeda some izrahelli taking about balls
@@LetoZeth no but he stated he was really nervous to begin with. He could have just listened and been content with the answers they gave him. He didn’t. He challenged what they were saying at the end and wanted them to know they hadn’t really brought a resolution.
I love you’re videos. You and your team are doing amazing work. It’s refreshing to see a TH-camr as big as you fight for our community. You have integrity and so many good qualities. 😊
55:40 favorite moment of the whole interview: Steve explains how executives are often perceived as robotic, smooth talking and empty. The executive looks super fascinated/shocked and goes "What could we do or have done to exceed those expectations so I can put that on my radar". It was super cute. Using manager language to phrase the question about how not to sound like a BS manager. lol. I like these guys to be honest.
For real. They've completely lost the ability to talk like real humans.
The problem is, in this day and age, executives are hired to increase profits to a point it decreases the quality of product/services. I've seen this in every company I worked.
To be fair, Steve didn't outright say their talk was empty, but rather that what people want is "concrete examples", so the question from the exec was along the lines of "what concrete thing could we do?"
Execs see things in numbers and reports. For them any scandal or backlash is just a temporary loss of revenue. PR efforts are just ways to increase the revenue. They're never in touch with the ground
@@Ferkiwi *Nah man, the exec meant that literally. "To put that on my radar" refers to his actual radar satellite dish (it's implanted under the human skin suit). The radar is also how executives reproduce and create more executives. They simply dock their radars and exchange brainstorms and synergies.*
Experience levels, 3 years, 6 months, 1 month and "in this role, recently"... Ouch. I bet the two who have been there 6 months or less probably feel they are being attacked. I was maybe not that surprised that they tried to cut off the conversation right from the start and not let it get out of hand before they could defend. Thanks so much for bringing this out in the open. Your work is greatly appreciated.
also trying to keep their jobs. Shitty of newegg to put them into the line of fire.
They definitely got thrown under the bus.
It seems like the staff turnover rate is very high at Newegg. There is definitely a bad egg in that company.
@@anorax001 They should get... A new egg
@@easytherecowboy6978 👁️👄👁️
i think all company's KPIs should be a 5 star review from every customer possible
This is absolutely amazing! You were brilliant, and asked exactly the right questions. Going to look for followups on this.
I've been a Newegg customer for many years and lately hearing many stories about them, and despite that, I just ordered an ATX 3080ti and CPU cooler from them, only because Amazon had no stock left and everyone else was charging too much. I'm due to receive it in 2-4 days. I hope they actually intend to fix this problem, because they have completely lost my trust.
I've worked for companies like this for 49 years, and been to hundreds of meetings with management. This is purely speculation based on my experience, but I think it went something like this: Newegg found themselves in a position where they could no longer compete profitably without making drastic cost cutting changes. They most likely had high level meetings where executives made the determination that RMAs were hurting their bottom line more than anything else. Upper management pressured middle management to tighten up as much as humanly possible on accepting returns. Middle management pressured front line workers to deny as many RMAs as possible, whatever it takes. Maybe even offered monetary incentives. No one thought to change the process to account for the honest customers who would be harmed by this, nor did they care.
Upper management in these cases only look at numbers and if they are improving, then they give themselves a big pat on the back for saving the company. They are most often completely clueless as to the repercussions, and again, don't care until THEY start to look bad. Apparently, they did start to look bad, and that's the only reason they agreed to meet with you and allowed a camera.
Hopefully this will encourage everyone involved to take another look at the process and make the needed changes, but I don't have a lot of confidence right now that will happen in any meaningful way. We will see.
Dang, let me sum it up, “How long have y’all been with Newegg?” Executive team- “Are we counting today as a whole day or half?”
Quality comment here.
😆 🤣 😂
Steve is a freaking lion for being able to sit there and not only articulate the problems well, but to call BS and put them in their place when necessary. His balls of steel are insane.
There were moments where you could tell they were annoyed that Steve wasn't being a yes man
I figure Newegg will offer him teh VP title and he'll decline, because, of course he won't cut his hair.
True investigative journalism. I salute you and whoever is working behind the scenes.
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
"Our Customers"
"Thankful for"
"Should have never happened"
"Let me speak for that"
"What this comes down to"
"There's improvements that need to be made"
"Where our focus is"
repeat for an hour
Dont forget
- customer experience
Corporate doublespeak bingo
don´t forget "experience"
Lol
Standard Operating Procedures
Never thought I'd watch a whole corporate meeting on TH-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 TH-cam is a HUGE step in the right direction!
This video was great. U guys are really making a difference on a bigger scale when it comes to getting a large company like Newegg to change there policies for the better. And I'm glad they eventually decided to come on camera. But props you for having the balls to go in there face to face and getting to the bottom of the issue. Even though we all know if the camera wasn't on those guys wouldn't have bin as nice. Plus most of them we're brand new to the company. Only one of them had been there for years and years.
One of them said he had only been with the company for one month.
I feel like they never even acknowledged the problem. They just kept implying it may have been the result of a "bad day" for their employees/unspecified "errors in the process" while emphasizing how tight their already process is - even though it was clearly failing hard.
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.
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.
Kudos for the very journalistic and fair approach. Subscribed to Gamer's Nexus!
Great job! Thank you for being a voice for the unheard!
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.
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.
That was really some baller move, to have the company have all their actually high tier execs come to the table and explain themselves.
I like a technology channel that also goes out and defends the little guy from these corporate behemoths. Great job Steve and crew.
I worked at snappy lube for a while and the manager would just sit in his office all day and watch our sales of extra items in real time (up-sales like oil flushes and injector clean etc) I'm willing to bet he got a percentage off our up-sales. One day he came out and said to me "you haven't sold any oil flushes today, gonna need you to step that way up". I go "we ran out yesterday". He proceeded to tell me to use a half quart of transmission fluid instead. I said i would but only after i tell evry customer that its actually transmission fluid and not the product they're paying for he said "just sell them" and walked away. Meanwhile all the other employees were selling shit tons of fraudulent flushes no prob, they didn't care. So i called an engineer from whatever transmission fluid company we used and asked if it was ok to put that stuff in a running engine. The engineer gave me a run down of all the bazillion reasons not to do that including it would likely void these people's engine warranties. I go "can you repeat all that to my boss?" and forwarded the call to Tim's office. I was fired that week.
How transparent is the company to the customers? How many line workers are willing or even care to go to management with legitimate concerns?.. if not then why? Is there something in place to make sure management is concerned with long term sustainability and not just the daily bottom line? Snappy lube would say "fuck all"
You need to contact an employment attorney and sue
Sadly that's what good honest people always get :(
When a business goes from being customer focused to just numbers focused
@@Andrew-he4cu Sadly, real life doesn't work like that. There have actually been many documentaries made on these "quick lube" and other shops, and their shady practices upselling crap to customers and employees being rated simply on how much they can rip off customers. In a low paying job without a long history at a company, the maximum reward from any lawsuit will be far lower than the time or aggravation spent dealing with the case.
You essentially have to be in a position where a company would compensate you well to let you go, in order for a wrongful termination lawsuit to be worth the time or effort.
Should have exposed them to the public
Sadly this sort of thing is prevalent in larger companies when it comes to management and their employees. They're laser focussed on the one thing that their performance is judged on and will totally use the staff beneath them to make sure they hit them. Those bonuses man, it's all about the short term money. When your engineers start bringing up long term concerns about thier decisions, they love to tell you that we're not employed to make decisions, they are. Until they bite them in the arse months/years from then and then they blame the engineer. Usually resulting in them taking the fall for their greed. Happened to me a couple of times (thankfully kept the evidence of their ineptitude so they couldn't fire me). In the end I just quit as I just couldn't work for them any more.
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