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Best Buy + Windows Guru = Apple Store Experience?
CWmike writes "As part of Windows Vista's $300 million marketing rehab, Microsoft will hire an initial wave of 155 'Windows Gurus' to walk around Best Buy and Circuit City stores to answer customer questions and defend Vista's reputation against skeptics, reports say. Gurus will earn $20 an hour or more, plus benefits. (Apply here.) One way Windows Gurus will differ from Apple Geniuses is that they are not intended to be sources of free technical support for existing Vista users. 'The Guru role is to help sell Windows-based PCs. It is not to be an alternative tech support channel for Microsoft as this has no financial return beyond improved customer satisfaction,' Baker said. One reason: Windows Gurus could end up 'lightning rods for customers' frustrations with Vista.'"
Only people in marketing could come up with the term "guru" to mean "someone who can't help, and exists to market to you until you give in".
And Microsoft misses one of the myriad small points in why Apple is seen positively by so many people despite having software release management run by a Crurotarsan.
I've had some sales experience and, yes, these gurus will most definitely be lightning rods for customer frustration...any customer frustration. It doesn't necessarily have to do with Windows Vista.
I had a guy tell me I was an f'ing idiot because I tried to sell him a warranty (AKA do my job) because his printer just broke (after 5 months, which our warranty would have covered). I wasn't pushy, but, man...that was just rude. I certainly didn't cause his $500 printer to crap out. It was nice when our manager kicked him out of the store and told the guy never to talk to his employees that way.
Some people just like treating other people like crap.
I think "explained appropriately" is all in the eye of the beholder.
FTA: The good thing is that Microsoft will be able to get Windows explained appropriately on the sales floor. Oh my God, does this sound ominous. Any Best Buy employee explaining Windows "inappropriately" will be taken out back by a Windows Guru and "evangelized".
It's Windows we're talking about here; not OSX.
How could selling Vista machines possibly improve customer satisfaction?
I use Apple and Linux at Home and Windows and Linux at work and I have to say that Apple (like Pixar) does a great job on polishing under the drawers; they don't do anything halfassed in the total experience. They control the product, the store and the whole experience for a reason... to make them look extremely polished and extremely in control.
Until Microsoft opens their own shops and controls their own hardware OEM, they can't quite duplicate the same experience that Apple has at their stores. They only thing they can do is create propoganda in a controlled environment. And Apple already has retail people and retail sections in Bestbuy locations so these MS people are going to have to compete on their turf; Apple people don't compete with anyone in their stores.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Windows Vista Guru = salesperson.
Good grief Vista must suck.
Their adds where people try Vista and say gee this doesn't suck.
Their ads with with Gates and Sienfeld.
Until now I thought that Vista was just too much pain for not enough gain. I thought that maybe Windows 7 would be better.
Now I get the feeling that Vista is the Yugo of OSs. It must really suck if they are having to push this hard.
I was going to put Vista 64 on my wife's new PC. Now I am going to rethink that one.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Not to be overly cynical, but this sounds like paying a bunch of people to walk around and try to convince the user that the experience won't suck, has never sucked, and that I'm merely deluded.
I mean, how much of it will be true, and how much of it will simply sound like a sales pitch from someone who drank the Kool Aid?
Man, shopping in most electronics stores is annoying enough -- having some git wandering around stumping for Windows Vista is just one more nuisance to avoid. If I'm standing there looking at a PC, and after I've shooed the salesman away, I don't want to then have to deal with some MS shill.
Hearing that they won't actually be useful sources of information for existing customers only re-affirms my cynicism about this program.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The apple stores centers around 3 things
1) The Genius
2) An army of employees running around to help people
3) A non intimidating open and easy to navigate store
Everything they do hight lights those two things, because they can do your credit card purchase remotely they can spend more time helping people decide. They reserve so much of the store for their training sessions and demo units that the Apple store does not feel like a big box store. I don't have to work my was past cameras, dvd's, home appliances, and video games to get to the computers.
The apple gurus are *not* sales folks and I have had them send me other places rather than buy an over priced adapter (ironically they sent me to best buy) meanwhile the 'The (Microsoft) Guru role is to help sell Windows-based PCs'. Yea thats what MS need more sales pressure at best buy...
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
"as this has no financial return beyond improved customer satisfaction"
This just says it all about the entire Microsoft experience.
I guess that's all they could find for a "Guru" willing to accept $20.00 per hour. Sorry, but if you use "expert," "genius," or "guru" in your title, you will not see $20.00 per hour.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
41,000 a year for a job with a low entry skill is "not bad"? Are you serious? It's 5k above the national average wage.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
what bothers me even more:
> The Guru role is to help sell Windows-based PCs.
? It is not to be an alternative tech support
> channel for Microsoft as this has no financial
> return beyond improved customer satisfaction,'
So, let me get this straight. They are trying to improve customer satisfaction by telling everyone how great it is, but not provide help to get it to do what they want.
Funny. That's /exactly/ my experience with Linux evangelizers, and the primary reason I don't use Linux.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
The overall expenditure on this "campaign" seems relatively minor in the scope of the whole "rehab" effort.
Assuming the full-time hours stated in TFA, and that they continue this for a whole year (not stated):
$20/hr=$40k/yr
155*40k=6.2 mil
6.2 mil = A little over 2% of their total rehab effort
What sucks even more from the perspective of being one of these "salespeople" is that you, unlike the other store salespeople, don't even have the opportunity for commission, which must make it even harder to internally justify the act of promoting Vista to unsuspecting saps.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
That's why they're paid 20 bucks an hour!
Um.. are you under some delusion that $20/hr is a LOT?
What is...?
When people start to realize that these "gurus" won't help them with their problems, they will get more irritated than with the usual clueless Best Buy salesdrones. After all, what do you expect a guru to do? Answer questions!
So they will either have to figure out some kind of transition to make those gurus available for tech support (which of course means a lot more training), or end up doing more damage than good.
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
What happens when the customer comes back NEXT weekend and tries to get the "guru" that gave him the advice to buy the Vista box?
Okay, grab a different "guru". Why can't you answer my question? The other guy said that it WOULD work.
It's not going to take many episodes like that before this becomes a disaster for them.
Probably is, compared to what the regular Best Buy salesdrones are getting. I'm wondering if this is some sort of masterful plan by Steve Jobs. After the sort of "defense" Vista will get from Best Buy employees, I doubt anyone will want to buy it!
How do I get a refund if I refuse the Vista EULA on the computer and want to install something else?
In many areas of the country, it IS a lot for the type of job they're doing, especially since it almost certainly doesn't require a serious education. It's not exactly a "highly skilled" profession, it's just sales. A kid with a high-school diploma and some interest can do it.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
These pushers are why MS can't sell vista. They want to sell the product, they want to market it, but they won't support it. What Apple has is the personal touch. Chat icon on the help website. People at the stores you can talk to when you have problem. They support the product. Anyone can go in and talk to a rep for free, even on old product. MS does not support anyone without an additional charge.
Here is what would encourage people to buy vista and MS based computers in general. For about 100 million dollars they could put a help technician in every best buy store. Just a person sitting a desk. Wiling to help anyone who came in with a question. I bet Best Buy would donate facilities. Anytime someone had an issue with any MS Windows based computer, just come in a get some help. Make a reservation. Get the help in person. Do you think MS spent less than $100 million on the series of ad with Seinfeld, and those don't help anyone. The sales droid walking around lying to customers don't help anyone either. It realy seems like MS will spend money on anything other than helping the end user.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
None of this has anything to do with actual software. It has to do with image. Strung out felons tend to not help create a good image.
It's BS and an invasion of privacy, and unless someone has very serious issues it's ineffective due to various helpful products. Most jobs these days require either a 4 year degree or UA.
Customer satisfaction is Microsoft's guarantee. But, just who is their customer? (Hint: It's not the one's who purchase the software.)
with linux i find that support often takes a while (especially IRC) but aslong as im friendly ive only had 1 problem (some idiot insiting everything was flash's fault) hell yesterday i actually got help from the developer of my webcam driver. the key is not to pretend that linux owes you something.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
"Linux support" is an extremely broad brush because really it depends on what package you're talking about. I'm a sysadmin so most of my experience relates to Linux on the server type issues, but I can tell you now:
OpenLDAP : Frequently outright hostile to newbies. Core product is good at what it does, but is severely limited in terms of features compared to every other LDAP server around. The core developer team will actually go so far as to write papers explaining why OpenLDAP is better than any other LDAP server and why feature "X" cannot reliably/sensibly be implemented by anybody because it's physically impossible (even if feature "X" is already implemented by every other LDAP server in existence). Strangely, these people don't seem to object too loudly if a new version of OpenLDAP supports feature "X". (Any OpenLDAP supporters who wish to dispute this, first examine the mailing lists for the history of multimaster replication in OpenLDAP).
Samba : Generally very helpful, but expect you to have RTFM and ask intelligent questions. If there's one fault there are about 100 ways you can write a configuration file such that Samba will run and seem to broadly work but under specific circumstances will fail to work as expected in various interesting ways, none of which are discussed in the manual. The FM only discusses configurations that do work, and it's very easy to have a single line that messes everything up.
Bacula : Very helpful mailing list. Core developers hang out on it and have been known to diplomatically raise it as an issue when unwelcoming "RTFM n00b!" replies are sent.
Ubuntu Forums : No disrespect, but once you get to a certain point in Linux you're generally better off joining the mailing list that applies to the specific app that's causing trouble. I've read plenty of threads in these forums which went on for pages when they could be answered in one short paragraph and thought "In the valley of the blind...."