Geek Squad’s second act
Geek Squad CEO Robert Stephens sold his business to Best Buy and took it to the masses (suffering a few PR setbacks and “scraped knees” along the way), but he says his tech-support business is just now becoming relevant. Have Geek Squad experiences? Share them here.
Comment
Email
RSS
DiggMy dad had sent his computer to Geek Squad to have his hard drive backed up and the OS reinstalled. Geek Squad performed their duties well enough backing up the data to DVD and restoring the OS using HPs recovery tool. However, once my dad got home and tried to retrieve the data from the discs he found he could not do so. He called me up to find out why he couldn’t get the data off the discs. His computer only has as CD-RW drive. The geeks burned all his data to DVD! He had to return the discs and wait another day for them to transfer everything over to CD. My dad has since learned to just ask me for help since I can usually troubleshoot it on the spot and not wait 3 days and spend $100.
To: R.I.N., Austin, TX
If you (or any other individual) worked as a Geek Squad “agent”, you were in violation of State law, which states that you must have a Private Investigator License to do *any* type of analysis of a computer. I seriously doubt you have a Political Science degree and a P.I. license! Both you and the customer committed a crime in Texas! Amazing, but TRUE. If you don’t believe it, do the research. It’s a real law in Texas.
gEEK sQUAD SUCKS AND WE WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH BEST BUY AGAIN BECAUSE OF THEM. fIRST GRADERS ARE SMARTER THAN THEIR TECHS.
Horrible experience with Geek Squad. It was about a year ago. The “College student” geek seemed like he knew what he was talking about. When he left with my check for $280.00 all seemed well. Then bang my comp. was WORSE off than before. Thank God for Dell, now that’s customer service! Nope no more geeks allowed in my house.
I have to say that Geek Squad is a very innovative service that does cover a market area that few other large companies have, but they are rediculously expensive. I know the basics of PC’s, but any idiot can install norton anti-virus. you shouldnt be charged $75, $100 to back up your hard drive onto 1 dvd (8.4 GIGS), hundreds of dollars to remove a virus and fix your pc (which might be worth it if you have a high end pc [which if you do, im sure you know how to do some of your own work], but if not at that point you might as well buy a new one for the prices they charge) I know its a business and people who are stupid or lazy will pay the price (money wise), but for that money, I would rather learn to do it on my own. Work smarter, not harder
I recently purchased an $900.00 computer at Best Buy.
I asked for and was sold software to guard off illegal child sites.
I was dismayed when I found out that I purchased 30 day trial offer.
I also had to return and purchase a internet connection.
After 2 days I had my son’s computer up and running.
It is very doubtful that I will ever entrust a geek squad when I cannot even rely on the Staff and Managers to know what they are doing?
I have since bought myself a macintosh at an apple store.
What a difference in shopping experience, customer service.
Your executives should go shop an apple store and see what service should be like.
I will never take anything to geek squad. Read comments below to see why. I’ve had the same experience as others. What’s really sad is they assume because I’m a female that I don’t know what I’m talking about, except usually I know more than they do. I find it hard to believe they’re able to continue a “business” with such crappy service.
Listen all you naysayers … the Geek Squad did for computers what Honda did for motorcycles … they made them usable without the owner becoming and expert. I’ve been screwed and mislead by several private repairers …
one to the tune of $700 … I use the Geek Squad, I like them, they are quick, generally responsive and reasonable in price … You go Geeks … keep it up.
I am talking about charging 70 dollars to perform a duty that takes 10 minutes. Where is the value in that? BTW, I don’t play WOW or any other MMORP but I do like to think that there is still some people in this industry that are ethical.
What many of you fail to realize when posting, is that YOU might be able to install memory in 10 minutes, and YOU might not fry your hard drive doing so, but YOU are not the one bringing your memory into the store in a PLASTIC NON ANTISTATIC bag, and YOU are NOT THE ONE who values time over money. I understand you want to install the memory ASAP on your own and get back to your W.O.W. rather than go get a job, so keep your childish opinions to yourself.
I’m a Geek Squad addict/admirer. I love those kids!! Best Buy made a super “Best Buy” when they landed this group. Keep ‘em growing!
I am a Geek Squad Counter Intelligence Agent of 4 years. From my experience I have found that the value of a service is typically perceived based on 4 things: necessity, convenience, knowledge, & quality. Simply put, if you need it done, want to trust it’s done right and guaranteed, don’t feel like doing it, and/or don’t know how, then within one or more of these ideals, you will find value in a service. Think daycare providers (necessity), Professors (knowledge), cleaning services (convenience), and name recognition (quality). This is what Geek Squad and reasonably priced services offer to citizens of the computer using public (reasonably priced does not however always relate to cheap). Example: Before I learned how to change my own brakes I had no problem paying $150 for someone else to do it. Once I learned how easy it was to do (knowledge) I swore I’d never pay again…until I procrastinated too long once and needed to replace my rotors too (necessity). Now, if I’m just lazy and don’t feel like hassling with buying brakes, installing them, returning the cores and such I will pay to have it done (convenience). I will shop for price though and use someone I trust (quality). So complaining about the price alone only means that you don’t perceive the value of the service being offered at that price, or you have found prices to be relatively standard (You may have taken you PC to the “heightened temperature K-9″ but found that they will burn your buns for about the same huh? or your local repair shop where while you may not pay as much, you’ll still pay (and the quality guarantee may not be there either). So now you’re back at the Squad…complaining but here…hmmm…perceived value maybe???) Remembering still, most our fees are flat rate prices not price per hr. So while it may seem pricey to pay $130 to restore one machine which may only take a couple hours and a few mouse clicks. The next machine for the same $130 may require chasing down rogue .dll file associations, scrubbing away trojans & bots, and retrieving drivers no longer supported by their vendors. All of which may take hours or even days to diagnose, research, and repair; and yes we actually do need to research issues at times. We’re Geeks but we don’t know everything…immediately. Imagine if you were charged per hour for something that took 4 hours a day for 4 to 5 days to complete. Where would that perceived value be then?
In response to most of you espically
“Posted By David, Boston, MA : March 12, 2008 4:23 pm ”
It is amazingly apparant that you have little to no education by you poor grammar, as well as, you poorly thought out comment; furthermore, you must not have any insight into what it takes to manage a 40 billion dollar business. If you would take a moment to look into our corporate philosophy, and what we take aim to do each and every day you would see that your indicidual experience is isolated. Figure that each store gets roughly a thousand customers a day multiplied by 1150 store by 362 operating days a year, and an average complete customer satisfaction of 80%. So without adding in the extra traffic for the holiday’s that 417,450,000 total customers and 80% are completly satisfied. Less than 1% file a compliant. So if you are in the <1% category please do two things 1.)Complete a self assesment. If you are a chronic complainer and never satisfied with anything in your life then please never come back. We don’t want you. 2.) If you just truly had a bad experience talk to that locations GM. Our general managers are very closly tied to core philiosophies and I’m sure that he/she will be more than willing to hear your concerns and do whatever they can to help you.
Re Geek Squad, I agree with the comments that Geek Squad service is overpriced and poor value. From my experience it seems that they fail to protect data, going for the quick and profitable fix at the customers expense. If the customer is lucky, that quick fix is appropriate but the initial evaluation is not done and the risk to customer data is not communicated to the customer. Too late, the customer realizes the loss.
I used to work at Geek Squad, and can tell you that there were lots of problems with the techs there. First of all, your right, they aren’t Microsoft Certified, and never state that they are. When I worked at Geek Squad, I was the only tech on the bench with any certifications, and those were A+, Net+, CCNA.
But here’s how I remember it, we had maybe 3 techs who could actually do work other than reload the OS, and only 1 of them was full time. Good techs were expected to work on 4-5 computers at a time and complete 10-12 computers in an 8 hour shift, while most might do 2. Half of the techs couldn’t even put a clamshell case back on.
Prices might be overpriced over a mom and pop shop, but are a lot less than I used to charge my business clients.
Having worked at Geek Squad, I have never suggested that anyone take any device to service there.
I agree with Ray Heaton. Most Geek Squad boys have zero clue of what they are doing. I would never give them one of my machines.
Most of the technicians I encountered had zero clue what they were doing. Prior to taking my laptop into them I had wiped the HDD and restored it with the installation disk that came with the computer. I continued to recieve “Blue Screen” errors. Upon taking the laptop in, technicians ran their standard diagnostics on the laptop and were unable to find an issue. I went in to pick the laptop back up. Before leaving we booted it almost immediatly to a “Blue Screen.” I had told them initially that the GPU had been replaced 2 times on it previously by the manufacturer and I suspected this was still the issue. Later on, I found out there were 2 issues. The video card needed replaced and the fan cooling the GPU was not connected properly when the manufacturer swapped the original cards causeing the GPU failures. I am not a Hardware person and I knew more than the Geek squad Techs. I spoke to 3 different people at my location and they were all clueless. They refunded my money and sent me away unhelped.
I’ll never use Geek Squad again.
I took my computer in for some diagnostics because it wasn’t recognizing a second hard drive. After getting it home, it didn’t boot properly.
Back at the store, I asked why this wasn’t checked before releasing it to me. The Geek told me that they were making sure it ran properly after doing the diagnostics was not their responsibility.
When I asked for the manager, he was out to lunch. What a shock.
Aside from never using Geek Squad again, that was also my last visit to Best Buy (for similar reasons stated by so many in so many different forums).
Huge rip off, waste of my time, cost 100% more than it should have, terrible customer service. This is exactly what Geek Squad is. Great business idea, smart ceo, terrible company once best buy took over. I am sure the RS is not happy at the direction Best Buy has taken geek squad. I waited in line 1 hr (mind you there was only 2 people in front of me) both times at drop off and pick up. $200 to wipe out and install a new hard drive. Now i am beginning to think nothing was wrong and all i needed to do was my own reformat. I sure hope GS starts focusing on servicing and diagnosing true computer issues not just wiping and reformating.
Speaking as a former agent, those of us who CARED didn’t want to go straight for the restore.. Most of the time, our managers were jumping on us to complete computers quickly and get more money from new customers, so they’d tell us to wipe it and get it ‘done’. No choice for us. Smaller mom’n'pop stores have the time to explore the problems and actually fix them, because that is their only focus. If all a machine needed was a driver installed or a loose IDE or Molex cable connected, I’d have easily taken care of it.. I recall one situation where the only issue remaining on a machine was a policy to disable the task manager, ONE key in the registry to remove.. I was already off the clock, leaving my shift. But, because a coworker didn’t want to wait for me to come back or call me to ask where the entry might be, he resorted to wiping it instead to get the manager off his back.. I wish we had the time and labor/people to do it right all of the time.
Please, get real, huh. Unfortunately, those of us WITH a brain don’t buy the propaganda. Geek Squad is nothing more than the SAME untrained, unskilled morons that have ALWAYS worked at Worst Buy. Minimum wage morons. Only now they have an embarrassing name and VW’s. All the money is poored into marketing, and ZERO into training and personnel. Most employees wouldn’t know a computer if it landed on their foot, and the customer service is ATROCIOUS, like the REST of Worst Buy. They exist primarily to boost revenue by pushing more products in the store.
I have had had excellent tech support and service from our Geek Squad in Florence, SC. They are knowledgeable and friendly. I would recommend this team to anyone. The store is also managed well, which is a large part of why the squad works so well. These guys have a lot of pride in what they do!
What would being MS certified have to do with a missing driver? I think most of GeekSquads services are over priced, especially the charge for installing memory. It is at most a 10 minute job that can be taught to anyone I know.
They take full advantage over most people’s lack of knowledge of PCs and I find while it is not criminal it is unethical.
When I first used Geek Squad a couple of years ago, I got a same day appointment. That was great. Last week, when I needed a replacement power supply for a desktop, the first available appointment was 12 days later. And the time to do the repair inhouse was at least four days. That doesn’t work when you have a home-based business. I wish they had a higher-cost premium service for quick turnaround.
geek sqaud is a rip off, you can do everything they do for free. They don’t fix anything warrantied either, they just try to sell you more software each time you have a problem. save your money!
Rip off.. They charged my mom $750.00 to come out and reformat her hard drive. She could have purchased a BRAND NEW computer which would have been her first option if she had any idea. Take advantage of older people who do not realize it is as easy as doing a re-boot with start up disc and downloading some drivers. I will no longer shop at Best Buy.
We are still waiting for a laptop that was sent out for service at one of their off-site repair centers. It has been missing for over a month. It wouldn’t so bad but it was 1. promised back within a week, and 2. needs 4 hours of work done to it. They keep saying they have to ship it to another repair center because the first one DID NOT HAVE THE PARTS! Unbelievable!
Geek squad is just a bunch of goofy kids, playing at being computer techs. I am a computer tech and I am appalled at how little these people know. All they do is reload the OS or send the computer out for repair.
I can not speak very highly of Geek Squad. On two occasions I have had dealing with their store personnel and both ended poorly. I have a sense that they are poorly equipped to deal with all the problems that computer owners have. Their actions seem to be motivated out of a sense of “get it in and get it our quickly. We are after the turns, not quality”. As far as their profit motive goes, they damn sure know how to charge plenty for what they do. Most local mom and pop shops charge far less and give better results. Unfortunately, I can not see where they do much good other than contributing to BB’s bottom line. But, in the end, consumers talk among themselves and if you did a good job for me I will tell 5 of my closest friends. If, on the other hand, you did a poor job for me and caused me further grief, I will tell every soul within earshot for the next year what a lousy deal I got from you.
I left a laptop there and they lost it. Had Hundreds of thousands of dollars of info and cooperate data on it. Good thing for cooperate Back up….but who has all our data?
Yes they are goofs. I do no have time to mention the other friends whom have lost computers, data, etc.
I worked for Best Buy for over 2 years to help pay my bills through college. I think Geek Squad is an amazing asset that every tech store wishes they had (uhummmm Circuit City’s Fire dog). No one can compete. There are a few things that they could improve on. Mainly, there needs to be more “agents” available at each store. My location in Tampa, Florida had extremely high traffic. There were only 2 service stations at the front area. I think geek squad should have atleast a half dozen counter agents ready to service at all times, and more tech agents in the back with the resources to fix the computers. There is a Geek Squad “haven” where all teh harder repairs are sent to, and I think that they need to be at every location, if not in every district so that turn around time is better. Other than that, Geek Squad rocks, I will use them for many years to come!
I’ve been very dissappointed with the Geek Squad. Their service is limited to loading software and hooking up hardware. If something isn’t working they jump to reimaging. I brought my laptop in and showed them that the driver was missing to record DVDs. They told me that they would have to send it out and it would be approximately 6 weeks before I got it back. These folks obviously are not Microsoft certified. My maintenance contract was a waste of money.
Features-
In a tough economy, more business owners are bartering for the stuff they need. More -
In Oregon, the Recovery Act is paying for a local small business to protect nearby communities from wildfires. More -
Smart entrepreneurs are now doing deals in 140 characters or less on Twitter. More -
As more customers choose - or are forced - to fill prescriptions by mail, independent pharmacies are struggling to survive. More -
A Texas hospitality company considers where to invest and where to cut back to weather the recession. More -
How 7 innovative companies are inspiring workers and boosting the bottom line. More -
42 startups duked it out in the world's most lucrative business plan competition. We trailed one team to the bitter end. More
I rarely ever hear about Geek Squad and even more rare is when they are NEAR my little corner of the earth. Their demand is faltering here, because the techs don’t do a very good job. It could be because it’s a two and a half hour drive.
To John, they are actually just A+ cert holders. Then again, do you know how much it COSTS to get your MSCE? Unless you are independantly wealthy or you have a company willing to pay for it, most people aren’t in a position to AFFORD the test (something like $875.00 plus training materials last time I checked).