Geek Squad will fail even if the geeks do a great job, because the company doesn’t give the customer what they want AND because it gives them something they don’t want.
Geek Squad is the service that comes to your house to fix your network – rolled out nation wide by Best Buy.
Great idea. Solves a problem. I’m assuming their geeks are competent.
The problem is their marketing image is cute. And cute gets annoying. Especially when I’m already mad that my network is down. Call their 800# and you’ll have to listen to what feels like hours of a guy talking in a DRAG NET voice about how the squad works. Just connect me damnit! Stop giving me what I don’t want.
Then it won’t give me what I do want. They have set “packages.” Hook up two computers for this price. This much for each extra computer. But what if my computers are already hooked up and I want someone to tweak it? Or if I’m having problems moving the modem and switch to a new location? The woman on the phone tried to figure out a way to price what I wanted based on the boxes she had on her screen. OK I said, we’ll do it. THEN she told me they “wouldn’t have a geek in my area” till a week from Tuesday. Why didn’t she tell me that up front?!?!? I couldn’t wait that long.
I looked up David Blaise at PC Service Technologies. His website is still under construction (since 1995 it looks like) but he talked to me like a real person. Figured out how much I knew and what I didn’t know. Solved my problem quick and cheap. If you’re not near Milford, Connecticut I doubt he’ll “have a geek in your area” anytime soon.
If you can’t figure out how to scale quality then stay small.
13 responses to “Do you have to be crappy to be big?”
You have an image on here that is copyrighted material of Geeksquad. –SJ
I agree with Agent Jones. Please take this image off your site immediately.
I sent Agent Jones an email asking if she wanted me to take the image down. She said I could keep it up. Her email address ends in geeksquad.com (unlike that of Agent Williams).
Sorry about that. I tend not to use my work email much.
i do not agree with what you wrote… yes we do have package deals yet if customers want in home services that are not in our package deals, we end up charging them a set fee and then charging an hourly rate… so it would be a set fee for just coming out there, then by hour… same as the people who would like in home training, we just charge via hour…
Agent Stephen,
I’m glad to hear it works that way when you’re handling the calls. I’m just relaying my experience. The woman I talked to had a very hard time coming up with a price, never told me there was a by the hour option and then after all that said they wouldn’t have anyone available for over a week (and I live 10 minutes from a Best Buy store).
That interaction did not give me the confidence I need to hire a company to work on my computer network. Thanks for writing.
uh oh…
Thursday April 12, 2007 11:31 PM
POMONA, Calif. (AP) – A 22-year-old woman and her mother are suing Best Buy and its “Geek Squad” computer repair team, claiming that a technician dispatched to their home used a cell-phone camera to record the daughter taking a shower.
Sarah Vasquez and her mother, Natalie Fornaciari, said in the lawsuit, filed Wednesdy, that 26-year-old Hao Kuo Chi placed his cell phone in the bathroom during a service call March 4 in the family’s Walnut home.
Vasquez said she noticed the blinking phone positioned on the sink when she got out of the shower.
“I couldn’t believe this was happening to me,” Vasquez said. “I felt embarrassed and dirty because he did this when I was naked.”
The lawsuit also claims the phone was found in the bedroom of Vasquez’s 13-year-old sister.
Chi was arrested and charged with using a camera to view a person without consent and annoying or molesting a child under 18, sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Skidlarski said.
Best Buy said in a statement: “Obviously, we intend to cooperate fully with any investigation into this matter.”
A telephone listing could not be found for Chi in the Walnut area. It was not immediately clear if he had lawyer.
Al,
I read about that too. Frankly I don’t think it says anything about Geek Squad or Best Buy as a company. Any large business will have idiots in it. Obviously if the corporate culture encourages or even allows this sort of thing that’s different, but I’ve seen no evidence that this is true in this case.
But a story like this has that gossip-y appeal that gives it legs.
Hi, working for the Carphone Warehouse as a 2nd line technical advisor and then moving to the Geek Squad as a covert ops (remote assistance) I strongly feel that we can’t please all the people all the time. We can try to please most of the people most of the time. I feel very strongly that you can easily snipe at a large company purely from the fact that large companies do have more employees than smaller: therfore larger scope for mistakes. I would strongly oppose any stupidity or rash behaviour in the UK call centre and would like to also state that I belive most if not all our Covert Ops agents are customer orientated. As with all jobs mistakes do happen, and I would trust that larger companies are given the opportunity to deal with complaints rather than the usual ” sue them ” invoked by most Americans.
I worked for geeksquad through a call center and know all secrets. Its all because Best buy took over. All BBY wants is money money money with the least amount or resources spent and if thats at the expense of customer service levels, well so be it… Geek suad is a scam hear it from someone whos worked for them. only about 20 percents of geek squad agents care about their job, the rest are there for the $$$$.
How many individuals are not at their job for $$$? Just look at 90% of the world– our culture is money hungry-
That does not mean anything about the company or what they do- They are a decent company who offer most people who seek them out what they need. If you don’t need their services don’t call.
Hi boys!c15fbe93f0ae343768105397dc20ea12
I work at the Geek Squad as a counter operations person. now I’m seventeen and most of the time I know what I am doing. I answer phone calls, and let people know about their computer. As someone who has to answer phone calls all day for a company people rely on for fixing any computer need. Its hard! Let me tell you that constantly a call starts like this ” Hi i bought a computer from you guys about a year ago, and its not working, some cable blah blah something about code 23987435″ all I can do for these people is say ok ma’am/sir go ahead and bring it in and let us take a look at it. There have been times when I have been able to help over the phone but a lot of the time, the expect me to know exactly whats wrong. These days you never know if its a dumb virus or soemthing else. People dont understand that we aren’t super genius people with super powers that will let us know exactly what’s wrong, with small details given to us over a phone call.
I love my Job and to be Honest at 17 no I’m not in it for the money. I do care about the customer. And sir I do honestly think you had a bad experince that I hope you can overcome by having some good experience :)and will change your experience with us an enjoyable one.