Best Buy made headlines long before Twelpforce when it declared that it was going to “fire” certain kinds of customers – i.e., customers that took advantage of its generous return policies. This wasn’t a knee-jerk decision – it was based on a scientific reckoning of receipt data, as described in further detail in a Harvard Business Review article.

Now the next bit is pure supposition on my part – but I suspect that Best Buy’s attention to detail continued, and that cultural respect for data might have played a small role in Best Buy’s early adoption of not only social media, but other merchandising and service policies.

But, as is often the case with social media, YMMV.