I currently work at Geek Squad and you have said it better than I could. There have been so many times that I could have fixed a problem had I not been hindered by policies.
At our store we have one or two that don't know what they are doing, but the rest are great and understand that we are a SERVICES department working for a company that is driven by sales.
Then you obviously either don't work in a precinct now or failed to see any of the details of our last previous meetings.
Sure I get a check from Best Buy, but Best Buy is not the only place to find Geek Squad stores. There are stand alone stores and now we have Geek Squad precincts inside Office Depots. I don't think Office Depot is a part of Best Buy....
Just for the record, if your customer didn't know about the liability of lost data, he didn't read the freaking page he has to sign when he checks his computer in.
Granted, the moron at that Geek Squad precinct shouldn't have wiped the drive and for the record that is against "the rules." Maybe I'm lucky for being surrounded by good people at mine, but as far the policy...the customer didn't see it because HE chose not to read it.
I do have to agree with what some of the other people have said on here that have previously worked for Geek Squad. It depends on the location. I'm sure there are stores with freaking morons working behind the counter just like there are stores that are staffed with people who know what the hell they are doing.
To respond to the original question posted, does it honestly surprise you that there are morons filling out those service orders sometimes? You have to understand our side of the picture too. The same service centers that you work for fsck up just as much as some of the stores you receive product from. Our service centers screw up at least five to six things a week at our store. Things get sent out for obvious problems (i.e. lcd backlights not working) and get sent back "no fault found", however when we turn the LCD on when it comes back from shipping...it is still hosed. Half the time I'm standing there thinking...did you guys really even freaking look at this thing?
As for the pricing, hell yes it is way overpriced. I think everyone that works at Geek Squad would agree also. Our pricing scale went up last week and some of the prices we charge for some services now is f'ing crazy. There are very very few services that we provide that are priced at what I would see as fair if I was someone running my own business. Unfortunately for some customers, places like the Geek Squad are the only pc repair places worth trusting. Some are more willing to pay the extra money than to take their pc to Mr. Shady McShaderton down the block, or the emo kid with painted fingernails who lives next door.
And if you want an honest answer to the original answer posted, the people working at Geek Squad aren't always the best and brightest because of liability reasons. There are times when we are not even allowed to change RAM in a computer...yes RAM...due to liability reasons. Someone, at some point in time, brought had a computer fried and sued Best Buy or Geek Squad over the issue and now we're not allowed to do it. A lot of the Geek Squad agents aren't given normal "geek" knowledge by the company just because they don't need it to do their job. If you start taking all the interesting and challenging problems out of the stores and putting it into the hands of the service centers, you're obviously not going to train the people in the stores on how to fix it. It would be a waste of time and money. There are times when I can't even use a program, even though I know it works better than something I'm currently using, for the simple fact that the said company could file a lawsuit on our store.
I dunno, I don't agree with the pricing and I for damned sure know there are idiots out there. But every company like us has their idiots...not just Geek Squad. And maybe I'm just lucky to be surrounded by a ton of people who happen to know alot about pc repair...but remember not every store is full idiots, some actually have the knowledge to help take care of you.
Also for those that have said it earlier in the posts, Geek Squad is NOT part of Best Buy. We are not Best Buy's Geek Squad...we merely have a partnership with Best Buy. Think about the coffee shops and fast food places inside stores like Target and Walmart.
I can't say this is true for all Best Buy's, but I work in the warehouse at our local BB and we received ours today on a drop shipment in time for our Monday ad (we are closed Easter Sunday). All the stores in our district showed an "On Order" status which means it arrives usually by Fedex or UPS and not on our normal trucks, which makes it hard to put a finger on an instock date because we don't control the trucks they are coming in on. However, all of the stores in our district should have gotten them the same way we did today and I'm assuming it would be the same across the board.
Oh and we setup one of them in-store with Serenity and I must say it looks nice but I'm not totally blown away. The picture was still a little grainy in some of the scenes almost to the point where you were like "ok...", but some of the scenes looked amazing. So overall, I'd say it is an improvement over normal DVDs however, nothing next generation...yet. Once they start actually focusing on getting high quality movies to HD, it will be a lot better I'm sure. Also, it could have been the TV we had it on too. We wanted to put it on a Sony XBR but that was shot down by the higher ups =(
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So for the agents working in the precincts in the Office Depots and the stand alone stores...do they get paid by Best Buy?
I currently work at Geek Squad and you have said it better than I could. There have been so many times that I could have fixed a problem had I not been hindered by policies. At our store we have one or two that don't know what they are doing, but the rest are great and understand that we are a SERVICES department working for a company that is driven by sales.
Then you obviously either don't work in a precinct now or failed to see any of the details of our last previous meetings. Sure I get a check from Best Buy, but Best Buy is not the only place to find Geek Squad stores. There are stand alone stores and now we have Geek Squad precincts inside Office Depots. I don't think Office Depot is a part of Best Buy....
Just for the record, if your customer didn't know about the liability of lost data, he didn't read the freaking page he has to sign when he checks his computer in. Granted, the moron at that Geek Squad precinct shouldn't have wiped the drive and for the record that is against "the rules." Maybe I'm lucky for being surrounded by good people at mine, but as far the policy...the customer didn't see it because HE chose not to read it.
I do have to agree with what some of the other people have said on here that have previously worked for Geek Squad. It depends on the location. I'm sure there are stores with freaking morons working behind the counter just like there are stores that are staffed with people who know what the hell they are doing.
To respond to the original question posted, does it honestly surprise you that there are morons filling out those service orders sometimes? You have to understand our side of the picture too. The same service centers that you work for fsck up just as much as some of the stores you receive product from. Our service centers screw up at least five to six things a week at our store. Things get sent out for obvious problems (i.e. lcd backlights not working) and get sent back "no fault found", however when we turn the LCD on when it comes back from shipping...it is still hosed. Half the time I'm standing there thinking...did you guys really even freaking look at this thing?
As for the pricing, hell yes it is way overpriced. I think everyone that works at Geek Squad would agree also. Our pricing scale went up last week and some of the prices we charge for some services now is f'ing crazy. There are very very few services that we provide that are priced at what I would see as fair if I was someone running my own business. Unfortunately for some customers, places like the Geek Squad are the only pc repair places worth trusting. Some are more willing to pay the extra money than to take their pc to Mr. Shady McShaderton down the block, or the emo kid with painted fingernails who lives next door.
And if you want an honest answer to the original answer posted, the people working at Geek Squad aren't always the best and brightest because of liability reasons. There are times when we are not even allowed to change RAM in a computer...yes RAM...due to liability reasons. Someone, at some point in time, brought had a computer fried and sued Best Buy or Geek Squad over the issue and now we're not allowed to do it. A lot of the Geek Squad agents aren't given normal "geek" knowledge by the company just because they don't need it to do their job. If you start taking all the interesting and challenging problems out of the stores and putting it into the hands of the service centers, you're obviously not going to train the people in the stores on how to fix it. It would be a waste of time and money. There are times when I can't even use a program, even though I know it works better than something I'm currently using, for the simple fact that the said company could file a lawsuit on our store.
I dunno, I don't agree with the pricing and I for damned sure know there are idiots out there. But every company like us has their idiots...not just Geek Squad. And maybe I'm just lucky to be surrounded by a ton of people who happen to know alot about pc repair...but remember not every store is full idiots, some actually have the knowledge to help take care of you.
Also for those that have said it earlier in the posts, Geek Squad is NOT part of Best Buy. We are not Best Buy's Geek Squad...we merely have a partnership with Best Buy. Think about the coffee shops and fast food places inside stores like Target and Walmart.
I can't say this is true for all Best Buy's, but I work in the warehouse at our local BB and we received ours today on a drop shipment in time for our Monday ad (we are closed Easter Sunday). All the stores in our district showed an "On Order" status which means it arrives usually by Fedex or UPS and not on our normal trucks, which makes it hard to put a finger on an instock date because we don't control the trucks they are coming in on. However, all of the stores in our district should have gotten them the same way we did today and I'm assuming it would be the same across the board.
Oh and we setup one of them in-store with Serenity and I must say it looks nice but I'm not totally blown away. The picture was still a little grainy in some of the scenes almost to the point where you were like "ok...", but some of the scenes looked amazing. So overall, I'd say it is an improvement over normal DVDs however, nothing next generation...yet. Once they start actually focusing on getting high quality movies to HD, it will be a lot better I'm sure. Also, it could have been the TV we had it on too. We wanted to put it on a Sony XBR but that was shot down by the higher ups =(
Hope this eases some tension.