nerp
Diamond Member
- Dec 31, 2005
- 9,865
- 105
- 106
Because they survive in the face of huge chains by offering awesome service and a personal relationship with their customer. By fixing simple problems like that for free, they secure bigger jobs in the future and make their money there. The next time a customer wants a custom home theater system, instead of going to BarfBuy, they'll go with the local guys, pay $500 more and enjoy the personal service. That $500 is no big deal to cough up since you saved the $580 on the "broken" HD with viruses on it.
I don't know if I can agree with all the BB hate because of this. They took it to 2 BB's.. the first one fixed it in minutes for free.. the second one screwed around. Rather than blame BB, why not blame the douche that was trying to milk the customer under the guise of BB? Unless you really believe that BB has a policy stating that techs should try to commit fraud whenever possible to make money.
Zenmervolt
Elite member
- Oct 22, 2000
- 24,514
- 36
- 91
This, ultimately, is the real issue with large chains. It can be the luck of the draw whether you get decent service or not at any particular location and the turnover rates are high enough that you cannot be guaranteed that the same service levels will continue in the future. The bad stores can become good and vice versa.
ZV
My fiance's laptop crashed when she was in the middle of her master's dissertation (she was freaking obviously).
I took it to the local place, guy figured out the battery had jiggled a tiny bit loose. He took it out, stuck it back in, and it booted up. I was fully willing to pay the guy some fee, since I never would have figured it out, but he wouldn't have it. I would trust them now with any issue though computer wise! I also buy cables from them if the premium isn't too bad over ordering online (which I would never do with BB/FS).
I took it to the local place, guy figured out the battery had jiggled a tiny bit loose. He took it out, stuck it back in, and it booted up. I was fully willing to pay the guy some fee, since I never would have figured it out, but he wouldn't have it. I would trust them now with any issue though computer wise! I also buy cables from them if the premium isn't too bad over ordering online (which I would never do with BB/FS).
With the skill level and pay that GS offers, these errors are common.
If GS didnt charge $125 an hour for labor this wouldnt be a concern.
ya srsly....that is when when I read 580 HDD charge I thought "wtf is this 1997?". Might as well get a 400 dollar crapper that works just as well as what any avg user wants.
Saint Nick
Lifer
- Jan 21, 2005
- 17,722
- 6
- 81
I actually used to work for the Geek Squad and here's my take...
I know that there are a lot of terrible, awful, and downright stupid people that work for Geek Squad. Why? Probably because the management at the Best Buy is awful. The Best Buy that I worked for had a very competant management staff, and therefore, probably 90% of all employees hired at my location were knowledgeable and competant in their particular department. For some reason, managers can't see the degenerate they really are during the interview. So, they get hired, and perform poorly.
These are the people that make the Geek Squad look bad. The Geek Squad I work at had a lot of real smart guys fixing the units. A few of them were even A+ certified. Now, I'm not saying this automatically makes their integrity sky high, but it does make them more competant. I didn't have an A+, but was knowledgeable enough about the work to perform it in a timely manner. Geek Squad also wants to charge the customer for a lot of very easy services that should be free (hard drive install, RAM install, any hardware install in general, even software installs). I performed a lot of those services for free. I got a little bit in trouble from management, but I managed to establish good customer relationships.
So, long story short, I think that there are a lot of retards that work at GS/BB that make the company look bad, when actually, there are a lot of compentant people with good customer service skills that do good, honest work, and don't try to screw the customer.
I know that there are a lot of terrible, awful, and downright stupid people that work for Geek Squad. Why? Probably because the management at the Best Buy is awful. The Best Buy that I worked for had a very competant management staff, and therefore, probably 90% of all employees hired at my location were knowledgeable and competant in their particular department. For some reason, managers can't see the degenerate they really are during the interview. So, they get hired, and perform poorly.
These are the people that make the Geek Squad look bad. The Geek Squad I work at had a lot of real smart guys fixing the units. A few of them were even A+ certified. Now, I'm not saying this automatically makes their integrity sky high, but it does make them more competant. I didn't have an A+, but was knowledgeable enough about the work to perform it in a timely manner. Geek Squad also wants to charge the customer for a lot of very easy services that should be free (hard drive install, RAM install, any hardware install in general, even software installs). I performed a lot of those services for free. I got a little bit in trouble from management, but I managed to establish good customer relationships.
So, long story short, I think that there are a lot of retards that work at GS/BB that make the company look bad, when actually, there are a lot of compentant people with good customer service skills that do good, honest work, and don't try to screw the customer.
hanoverphist
Diamond Member
- Dec 7, 2006
- 9,867
- 23
- 76
hanoverphist
Diamond Member
- Dec 7, 2006
- 9,867
- 23
- 76
thats kind of what they are trying to herd you into doing... if a repair is almost 600 and a new one is 750, not too hard to make people feel good about "upgrading". shady and wrong IMO, but ive seen it at all kinds of places.
I stopped shopping at BB three or four years ago when EVERY single thing they sold was 2-5x as much as you'd pay someplace else...same with CompUSA, Circuit City, etc. Not once in my life have I EVER seen a deal from one of those stores that I couldn't find much cheaper in 10 minutes of looking.
$700 for a computer is only reasonable if you can't get an equal or better deal somewhere else. And that doesn't address the fact that there was nothing wrong with the machine in the first place, so it was all 100% pure scam to steal people's money.
What were you shopping for back then exactly? BB almost always has good deals on new release games, movies, and music. They may not be the absolute best deals, but they are better than a vast majority of retailers for those items.
Whatever I wanted at the time...computer stuff (mostly), movies, cameras, etc. Never once found a deal. Not once. Seriously. Could always do better at Fry's, online, smaller regional stores, etc. Sometimes the price gouging was so high as to be shocking.
That's not even mentioning the nazi customer service, complaints, etc.
Uh huh. So everything you ever saw was 2-5x the price elsewhere, and not once did Best Buy has an equivalent price to Fry's or online, eh? Interesting...
Never that I found. Honestly, I'm sure there were some, but never anything I was looking for. After about two years of disappointment (and reading the horror stories surrounding errors, returns, customer service, etc) I just swore off.
The guy's talking out of his ass. I've bought plenty of things from BB and their prices are always competitive against all the other big chain stores. Sometimes they even have some awesome deals like my Ati HD4850 that I picked up for $150 when it was $200 everywhere else. If you compare them to online stores then of course they're going to be more expensive since a B&M store cost more to operate.
Oh yeah?
$119 (regular price $160)
$75 (another 'bigbox'
$67 (online, free shipping)
I could do this all day.
hanoverphist
Diamond Member
- Dec 7, 2006
- 9,867
- 23
- 76
yet you still go to frys electronics? before they even had a web presence there were sites dedicated to listing the ways in which frys sucked ass. it was kind of funny most of the time, but really sad
No, I seldom go there any more. They got more consumerish and less electronics geek. Prices went up on parts, and inventory went down on hobbyist stuff. Never had a single bad experience there when I was going though.
CallMeJoe
Diamond Member
- Jul 30, 2004
- 6,938
- 5
- 81
It happens; if the cable is not plugged all the way in when the HDD is initially installed, it can work loose if the computer is moved around at all. I can agree it is highly unusual for a cable to come completely loose (like the one in the "test"), but it's not that extreme to find one just loose enough that it no longer makes sufficient contact and won't detect or boot.Originally posted by: CZroe
Though it seemed to work out mostly in this case, this type of "test" is flawed to begin with. People don't forget that the last thing they did was unplug the HDD (or "something" inside), meaning that these tests require the test customer to misinform the tech. A tech would suspect a bad HDD before looking inside if led to believe that it spontaneously did that and the user insisted that they did not open/unplug it. Furthermore, most will not open your computer until you have agreed to diagnosis (and thus, a fee)... an understandable requirement.
Remember, this was not a laptop with a loosened drive bay.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 21K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter