I used to work at Best Buy, and I did exactly the opposite. My particular store did not have an "Apple Shop," and when customers would ask about Macs vs. PCs, I would pretty much always vouch for Macs, despite not selling them in the store. Customers also would frequently as me what brand of computer I had, and I would always honestly tell them I owned a Mac. (Actually, out all the other employees in the PC department, a majority of us owned and used Macs exclusively, including my supervisor and sales manager.)
I remember one particular night when I discussed Macs with a college student and her parents for about an hour, even going past store closing. Now, of course I probably would have gotten ripped to pieces if any one above me had heard me saying anything negative about the only computers stocked in the store, and even though I did not make a sale, but I did it anyway, for several reasons:
1) The regular Best Buy sales associates don't make any kind of commission. None whatsoever. So it didn't matter to me if I spent an hour or more with a customer and they bought $10 worth of product or $10,000. That's not to say that I would neglect other customers in the store though, because that takes me to my next point...
2) When you are honest and up front with a customer, and genuinely want to help them and not fool them, they appreciate it. It was very much frowned upon, but if a customer needed more time to think about a purchase, or go physically check out a competitor, including the Apple Store, I said "Hey, sure thing!"
3) Because of this, I knew that a lot of the times, they would come back to purchase something from me, and since I was a representation of Best Buy, from the company. For some reason, it seems Best Buy is only concerned about the now, rather than the long-term relationship with the customer, even though in their training they stress that the company should provide a long-term relationship with the customer (in the form of financing, Geek Squad services, and customer loyalty programs like Reward Zone). But if it takes a day or two for a customer to go out, check out other products, and come back, then I didn't see the big deal. And a lot of the times when people would come back, they would use the Best Buy offers like financing and the Geek Squad protection...
AND, Best Buy makes more profit off Macs than any other computer they sell. So when I sold Macs in a store that didn't even have them on display, if anything they should praised me. (Even though they weren't on display, we could have them shipped to the store, or order them via another store so that the store I worked at, and myself for store reporting, was marked as the seller.)
4) I also got more positive feedback from customers, like them telling managers and supervisors how nice, honest, etc. I was. This didn't matter in any way monetarily, but it was always nice to hear that sort of thing -- a good break from other customers trying to bring me down all day and treating me as their personal bitch.
So, point is, not all Best Buy employees are brain-dead slaves, or don't know their stuff. Several of the people I worked with have gone on to work at Apple Stores. Despite their Apple training, they are the same people. And to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the current Best Buy training and current Apple training were pretty much identical, from reading the training docs that were leaked a while ago. And yes, Best Buy employees do get training, tons of it. But the fact is, a lot of the people that work at Best Buy just don't care -- they are younger teens who don't appreciate working for their money, or they really feel like **** from customers being nasty all day. The employees at the Apple Store are going to care more -- because if you work at an Apple store, you obviously have strong brand loyalty already, and customers treat their employees better because the stores do have a premium feel.
I'm posting this because the bad-mouthing, hasty generalizations against all Best Buy employees irks me. They are still people, and they are not all the same idiot drones.
TL;DR: I worked at Best Buy, and told people to buy Macs instead. Employees don't make commission. Customers would come back and buy from me because they appreciated my honesty. Best Buy makes more profit from Macs than any other computer they sell.
I have overheard the 'sales people' at the local Best Buy on occasion rip the Mac to a customers face when they ask about it. I have gotten involved in some of the more egregious episodes that I've witnessed. Once a 'sales person' said that the Macs are 'notoriously harder to use than the PC with Windows 7'. And the customer repeatedly asked what made it so hard to use and the 'salesperson' said that 'Macs don't run windows or any of the PC software and that getting your PC data on a Mac is nearly impossible'.
Yes! The Mac is doomed because it can't run 'Windows software'. I grabbed a box of Microsoft Office and showed the customer and said that it reads PC data with no problem. The 'salesperson' said that 'Macs don't have floppy disks' which I pointed out that none of the PC's they sold had one either'. The guy then huffed and walked away.
That's hilarious, I'm actually banned from my local best buy because I overheard a sales person tell someone that the solid state drive on a macbook air is far less reliable than a conventional drive, and after so many reads/writes gives out, usually in the time period of a year. He was talking to a little old lady that knew nothing about computers and just wanted to check her email, and he was trying to force a 15" pro on her. I corrected him in front of a few people and told the lady what she should be looking at, which got the district manager involved and me banned for life.
I did get approached by one of their management bots once after getting into it with a 'salesperson' and a customer. The chick was apparently some kind of assistant to an assistant at the store and blew the whistle on me when I made her look like a total ass. I didn't get banned but I did get my statement in that she was totally wrong and that if they actually wanted to sell some Apple products and keep the Apple kiosk, they might want to get people a lot more acquainted with the Apple products so they don't end up essentially lying about them to customers. There was no defense if they truly do not work on commission... (Although I realize that they probably make more on each PC sold than a Mac, but still at some point I wonder why they wanted the kiosks in the first place.)