Best Buy Abandoning "Optimization" Service?

ddillman writes "According to The Consumerist, Best Buy is apparently dropping some of its 'optimization' services, and will instead provide the 'Best Buy Software Installer,' a new tool that the company says will 'radically simplify how you set up and customize your new PC or upgrade an existing one.' Translation: instead of you paying Best Buy to delete trialware from your new PC, Best Buy will get paid by software makers to try to get you to install it. A page on the Best Buy web site states that the new installation tool will be available January 17th, and 'gives you choices and options to configure your computer, and saves you time by making it easy to discover new software, then download and install with a single click.' According to an alleged internal Best Buy document obtained by a technology blog, Best Buy stands to make an extra $5 per PC just by including BBSI."

Comments

Re:suckers

[S-100]

There's not a big enough emergency in the world to get me to pay $79.95 for an HDMI cable at Best Buy. For emergency routers, external hard drives and such, I go to the 24-hour Wal-Mart SuperCenter. Always funny going up to the cashier at 3AM with milk, eggs and hard drives...

Best Buy Sucks

[Antisyzygy]

Having worked for Geek Squad one summer while in college, I can say that the services they offer are overpriced and not a good value. Management told me time and time again to sell more of their 300 dollar advanced diagnostics tests to people that were suffering from simple issues. They try to package everything into ridiculously priced "package deals". Meanwhile, we werent given the tools to solve many of the problems they claimed we could do, and also encouraged us to try to fix. Its a simple problem of idiotic management, over-zealous marketing, and crappy tools. Don't use Geek Squad, and dont use this stupid utility they are trying to push on everyone. I would bet its just another attem

Re:$5 per PC

[acedotcom]

well thats the thing and always has been. there is no profit in computer sales. i worked at BB for three years and learned that every time i sold a computer. it was always about the accessories and services. One time i got dragged back into in office and given a warning about my salesmanship because I helped a customer make their computer package better. They had bought $2000 worth of computer and $2500 of accessories (printers, cables, ink...all kinds of stuff). however i got yelled at because i swapped a piece of "learning place" software for a router, they had the same dollar value, but of course the router was less profit. But that wasn't the issue the REAL problem was that it lowered our stores daily sales numbers when applied to other Best Buy stores in the area (not against competing stores).

I was instructed time and time again to "walk" customers if they weren't getting additional accessories or services, and at least once a day i did. So even though we weren't "on commission", something we were told to tell every customer, that didnt matter because we treated everyone like we were.

i know these stories are told every time an article about Best Buy pops up, i just wish more people could hear them. It has never been about providing "exceptional products and services in a user friendly environment", it has ALWAYS been about the fact that BB loses money when they sell computers without attachments.

Misunderstanding

[Mostly Harmless]

The problem with the Geek Squad is that Best Buy managers are often so far removed from what the Geek Squad is and how it should work that it becomes a poorly managed mess in many stores. This is the crux of the issues many people have with the Geek Squad.

The truth is that the optimization service is a good one for many people. Best Buy creates the specifics of the optimization service based on feedback from their customers and from the Geek Squad Agents who work on their computers. You must realize that for the majority of the Geek Squad's customers, a computer (tower) is a "router," Toshiba is "Toshibia," Linksys is "Linksky," Windows 7 is "Windows Veesta 7," and that's only if they know the difference between Windows and MS Office (which MANY do not). We're not talking about people with even passing computer knowledge. For these people, not having an icon for Internet Explorer or My Computer on their desktop (as is the case in many freshly-purchased machines) is akin to having a car with no steering wheel or pedals. The optimization service is designed to maximize the usability of a new computer for those customers who need it.

The optimization service takes some time (30 minutes to an hour) to complete. To save customers some time, the Geek Squad will "pre-optimize" a small percentage of their computers. In doing this, they are not violating any laws provided they leave any minimum available quantity (if stated in the weekly ad) unopened. If you attempt to purchase a computer and all they have left are pre-optimized units, they are required to sell you the computer at the normal retail price. They can not force you to pay the optimization fee. They do have the option, however, to restore the computer to factory defaults before they allow you to leave with it, and they do not have to give you an open-box discount. If employees are breaking these rules (laws) it is because of the poor management I referred to earlier, but it is certainly not company policy.

The real villains here are Microsoft and the computer manufacturers for not providing a consistent and customer-friendly experience for new computer buyers. Some of it comes from simply economics and marketing: manufacturers can reduce selling cost by including loads of trial software, not including MS Office and antivirus software, etc. The savings are then (misleadingly) passed to the customer. (I am sure, though, that Best Buy's enormous purchasing power has some say in what the manufacturers do, though.)