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Computer Buying Experiences at B&M Stores
bob gnosh writes "The team over at [H] Consumer go into Best Buy, Fry's, CompUSA, and Circuit City and buy a computer at each store. They relate exactly what happened at each store, talk about warranties, and what to do to protect yourself or your friends when buying at these places." From the article: "Navigating these retail stores isn't for the faint of heart or those not armed with the right knowledge beforehand. As much as you'd like to go to your closest strip mall, have a salesperson discern your hardware needs, and walk out with a shiny new computer that does everything but load your dishwasher, such an experience is just not going to happen. Most retail sales people are simply not going to possess the necessary knowledge to correctly recommend or explain every nuance of a piece of hardware."
I usually go into Best Buy because I don't want to be bothered by salesman. Alas, my last major experience with them was less than impressive. While I was browsing for a new home router, a salesperson decided to help out. While he did eventually point me toward a nice Netgear Wifi/Switch combo that was well-priced, his technical information left a lot to be desired. He informed me on no uncertain terms that the unit I had been looking at "wouldn't be full speed" because it was "a switch instead of a router." According to him, a switch was a network device that simply splits the signal, thereby allowing only one port to talk at a time. I shook my head and tried to explain that he was thinking of a hub, and that a switch gives full performance on each port. Unfortunately, I had a head cold at the time and probably wasn't very persuasive. He just sort of gave me a look like, "Whatever, dude".
All in all, Best Buy "geeks" (*cough* *sputter*) tend to have the computer knowledge of a third grader who's been throwing around factoids with his friends at lunch in a desparate attempt to arrive at a miniscule of real knowledge. It used to be amusing to ask the sales staff complex questions just to hear their wonderfully made-up answers, but these days I'm far too busy for that sort of nonsense. They would honestly be a lot more helpful if they just gave their recommendation (the same "here's the popular product" one they give everyone) and went away. For everything else they need to either profess ignorance or point the buyer to websites where they can do their own research. (Not that they're actually going to do that. They need to sell overpriced "Geek Squad" cables and useless warranties somehow.) *sigh*
That being said, I feel sorry for the well-intentioned geeks who spend some small portion of their lives with a Best Buy name tag affixed below their lapel. It must be horrifying to be expected to be so disinformative just to sell warranties and accessories.
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Um- this sounds like buying most things, from washing machines to cars. Salespeople that aren't knowledgable? No way! You need to research things yourself....
Salespeople in many industries are very knowledgable, and are actually capable of listening to your needs and making informed, educated choices to guide you to the right purchase. The primary problem with electronics, however, is that many of the shops they visited pay their employees close to minimum wage, possibly with a marginal commission enticement. Given that, who do you think will fill those roles? I don't intend to demean workers at those shops, but it's inevitable: You're not finding the brightest stars of the tech world toiling away, with terrible hours, for $8 an hour at the local Best Buy.
Compare this to real estate where an agent might make $20,000+ on the sale of a single home. While there are exceptions, the financial draw does entice more intelligent, more motivated, more capable individuals. The same can be said for many other sales industries where representatives can actually make enough to earn a decent living, and to credibly call it a real career.
I think a better way to say it is; Most shoppers won't pay the prices needed to ensure that retail sales people posses the necessary knowledge to correct recommend and expllain every nuance of a piece of hardware.
I used to have some friends who ran a small computer store. They built machines and sold hardware. They were friendly and knowledgable and did at-home-at-office service calls. Their target was a small but fairly affluent town and they did well for those customers who realized that "cheap" and "quality service" are often words not uttered in the same sentence.
When they saturatued their small town they were not effective at finding more customers that fit their demographic. The tried to compete with Best Buy and Dell and they failed miserably because at the end of the day they couldn't justify selling a computer for $20 profit.
They could answer a customer's question knowledgably and spend the time needed to make sure the customer ended up with a very good fit for their needs. They just couldn't find enough customers who were willing to pay for this level of knowledge and personal service.
A friend of mine once said, after I told him about some bad experiences with computer salesmen: "If you know anything about computers, you're not going to work in a computer shop." He's right of course; you can make much more money elsewhere if you know anything about computers.
-- Cheers!
I can't speak for CompUSA (though it's unlikely) but Circuit City hasn't had comissioned employees since the first month of 2002, and Best Buy never has. There are minimum quotas everyone is expected to meet (otherwise, how can you tell if they're doing their job or not?) but you'll find that just about anywhere.
A friend of mine was buying a printer at Best Buy a few years ago and needed a USB cable to go with it. The sales drone tried to convince him that he needed to buy one of the "gold" cables... and that going with a cheaper "silver" USB cable would result in blurry photograph prints. My friend (a computer engineer) almost started to explain about digital signals and all that, but decided it was pointless.
First against the wall when the revolution comes
The "printable" link, text is all in one page and no ads:
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/too/ hard on the employee who mentions it to you, their job is on the line.
http://consumer.hardocp.com/articleprint.html?art
On another note, I used to work at Best Buy. I really needed a job at the time and couldn't find work anywhere else. I certainly know my stuff about computer hardware and software, so did a few other employees. One was even a computer science major fresh out of university just waiting for a real job opportunity to come by. Of course, a few employees knew absolutely nothing. So it's sort of a mixed bag, you could get lucky and find an honest and knowledgeable salesperson or you could get someone who knows nothing about computers and just wants to sell you an extended warranty.
On that note, stores are given a quota of extended warranty sales per day (usually they want 10% of profits to be extended warranty. Extended warranties are a major cash cow for these stores. Thus, employees (especially computer and home theatre) are told to promote the extended warranty and go through the checklist of it's features to EVERY customer, even if they flat out refuse upon first mention. So try not to go
My recommendation: buy online, avoid the sales pitch, do the research yourself.
And this is tough when you are holding a crying kid.
If you're trying to buy a computer at the same time as abducting children, then you're just doing too much at once.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Ha! I love it! I work at a major store as a big-shot manager type, and I found this article interesting for a number of reasons. What the article describes is a very common problem. The people who truly know about these computers are not working in retail. So, you try to hire people who sound like they know what they're doing and sometimes train them on the rest. The stores with the best trained staff consistantly outperform poorly trained stores. A lack of training often implies a cost leader strategy by the company, and cost leaders rarely outperform quality leaders' profit margins. However, cost leaders can make more profit by volume. Best Buy, in particular, has isolated those who truly understand computers and created a "Geek Squad" that does not spend much time on the sales floor. They want the knowledgable staff to work on the higher margin tech support tasks rather than the low margin sales track. Geeks tend to be better geeks than salespeople.
P.S. Commissioned sales staff tend to make a LOT more money than non-commission. Personal shoppers often work on commission, and their higher payrate gives them more weight to fight for you (the customer) when going through beauracracy or other paperwork functions.
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Secondly they move people around the store regardless of their knowledge. I wanted to go to the Geek Squad because i did know my way around the inside of a computer and the software. Again, many of the people hired up there didn't know to much. Some were meant only to run half automated "diagnostic" programs and install software. Only a few of us back there actually could fix a computer.
Due to little hours, i was "forced" to go work in a different dept. I was put in Digital Imaging. This was not one of my more knowledgable area. The only reason i was there was to pay my bills. Thanks to a sparked interest in the area and lots of external research, i do know a lot more than most of the other employees in that area.
Best Buy does not offer adequate training to its employees. The training provided is in the form of a online articles and quizzes. Although these are mandatory, they are easily skipped through. Also the articles for computer and cameras are generally outdated to the current hardware on the shelf. This is the only form of technical knowledge training given.
Another thing to consider is that the majority of people coming in to buy a computer have little or no technical knowledge. When asked a question such as "what is hyperthreading?" Most, including myself, resort to a very simple non-technical answer as to not confuse the customer. This is adequate for 90% of the customers. The other 10% first see you as someone without a large amount of computer knowledge. When i can identify the person with a higher knowledge of computers, i tend to use more technical terms and more indepth explainations. Also i do understand that the majority of people at best buy do not have the knowledge for more technical terms and explainations.
As a college student, this is only a job to pay the bills. Most knowledgable people in my store are the same way. The ones that actually know what they're talking about don't usually stick around that long. Just enough to get through school or land a good internship/co-op. All of these reasons would contribute to why many sales associates don't have much computer know-how.
Two words: laptop trouble. That's when buying an extended warranty is a good thing. If you go and buy a laptop, best to spring for the little bit extra for the warranty.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
We're the problem.
No, really...
Yes people used to have pride in their work, but the problem is that for someone to have pride in their work, and to actually know something, they need to be able to stay there for a while, and for them to stay there for a while, they need to be paid a living wage. If you don't pay a living wage, you're going to get either those who stay there only until they can get a job somewhere else, or the people who are unemployable anywhere else.
And the reason, of course, that people aren't paid a living wage is that we the consumer are drawn to the lowest cost. There are still electronics and computer stores where the people who own the store run it, who are in there as a career, and those are the places I shop. Unfortunately, to support that, the prices must be higher. I'm fine with paying an extra 5-10% (or more) to get good service from intelligent people who know what they're talking about. Most people arent, so the minimum wage big-box stores with retail drones are taking over the landscape.
If people actually want better service, they should be willing to pay a bit extra to get it. You can only have one or the other, not both.
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