Playing Hardball With Best Buy

Yes, Best Buy is a prime example of a store that should be avoided completely.

(If I can mention another website): I'm a regular reader of Consumerist.com, and it seems that every week there is a new Best Buy issue posted.

It's further indicative of how bad Best Buy is when the majority of comments on a Best Buy issue post state that they can't believe that anyone who visits Consumerist with any regularity still shops at Best Buy.

While Best Buy may be king of the mountain that is horrible retailers, it's just another example of the culture of retail that exists in this country right now.

This culture seems pervasive at almost every level of a lot of these companies... Anti-customer store policies, poorly trained staff (exhibited by inattentiveness, rudeness, unhelpfulness, bad behavior, and a lack of knowledge, etc), and customer service personnel that are more concerned with getting a customer with a problem to suck it up and get out of their face or off the phone ASAP rather than actually assist them and stand by what they sell.

They hire people, retail management included, seemingly from the bottom of the pool. When Circuit City fired all of their best and senior people (who correspondingly made a slightly better wage) and hired new people at a lower rate, that sent a clear message about what they think about their customers. I like to think that their poor financial performance, followed by a beggar-like attempt at rehiring said employees sometime later, was a clear message from customers (albeit passively).

Customer satisfaction and retention are a thing of the past with a lot of retailers, mainly the "big-box" stores. If you insist on continuing to shop at these stores, do yourself a favor and learn any policies the store has (for returns and the like), but also learn how to fight back as a consumer. It's unfortunate, but it has become a customer-vs-retailer environment. Educate yourself to fight back, it IS your right, but it's also your responsibility.

Personally, I try to shop at Amazon or Newegg or a half-dozen or so other online retailers that still believe in customer satisfaction and retention. Some even have brick-and-mortar representation, but of those the good ones are rare.

Regarding Geek Squad, I kind of have mixed feelings (though I would avoid them like the plague, personally).

First of all, know that many computer problems may not be able to be diagnosed and repaired on the first attempt. A lot of it is trial-and-error, wait-and-see with use, issue replication, and yes, user process/procedure (such as "your doing it wrong").

On that last note, even a perfect malware cleanup (and most almost never are without wiping) is only any good up until the point that the user starts the same routines that facilitated malware to begin with.

Also, software issues can sometimes seem like hardware issues, and vise-versa.

Fixing a computer is not like fixing a car; they're a lot more dynamic and there are many more points of failure. Also, auto repair has had MUCH more time to evolve. Also, older PCs can be a lot more time-consuming than newer PCs. On the other hand, sometimes it is easier and a lot quicker to do, it's just a matter of an accurate diagnosis and availability of the correct parts. For example, it takes all of about 10 seconds to replace a faulty memory module, but memory issues can often look like just about anything else, and without certain diagnostic tools (which the vast majority of repair people either don't have or don't use, in my experience and observation) or the right extra part to swap and test, it can be frustrating and time-consuming.

That being said, the costs of Geek Squad's services are unconscionable, especially given the fact that (again unlike auto repair), one can easily work on multiple PCs at the same time. Of course, this depends on exactly what is being done... Good portions of a malware sweep, OS reinstall, or HD re-imaging can be done unattended, which can free up a tech to work on another system (or systems) that he's placed right next to that one.

Then again, when these people are hired from the bottom of the barrel, their priority is something other than getting as many PCs as possible fixed accurately in a reasonable amount of time.]

Thus, 10 days of downtime for something that could probably have taken a couple of hours to do.

Mike of NY 11:24AM March 14, 2008