No, they are not ready to help, or at least not yesterday, when I gave the Geek Squad at my local Best Buy an opportunity to live up to its claims on the Best Buy website.
ProEthics had an emergency yesterday. Grace’s laptop, from which she runs our business, wouldn’t start; we couldn’t get the power to go on. We know we need to replace it because it is old and has been having hiccups more frequently recently, but the end-of-year cash flow being what it is, were hoping to deal with the issue in January. My son has the magic touch regarding all forms of technology and anything mechanical, but he was at work, and I decided that we should deal with the crisis without interfering with his life. My neighbor has maintained a Geek Squad service contract for many years (though her computer needs do not involve a business), so I decided to give them a try. A corner of the local Best Buy is devoted to the computer repair and service company, which they acquired some time ago.
There was a bad omen at the start: two people were waiting, and no one was behind the counter. “She said she’ll be back in a minute,” one of the customers told me. As you know, almost every establishment, doctor’s office, restaurant and retail business is understaffed now, thanks to foolish minimum wage increases and businesses trying to keep costs down with epic inflation by hiring fewer employees. Customer service is virtually extinct. Best Buy, which once was notable for its plethora of employees on the floor who could answer questions and guide you through your visit, has now joined the trend.
When the Geek Squad staff member on counter duty returned, it was not a smiling man or a women professionally dressed in the Squad uniform pictured, but a strutting young lady with her hair in a durag with some kind of big bow on top. She had false eyelashes so thick and long that she appeared to be in party attire, with extreme make-up.
Well, heck….I decided that if Geek Squad felt she was a computer expert, she was a computer expert. I tried to explain my problem, including that my business relied on this laptop and that trying to get it working was crucial, but she cut me off saying, “Well let’s plug this in and see if it starts.” As I tried to say, “Yeah, it’s been plugged in all morning and it won’t…” she left the counter again, leaving me gaping like a fish. She returned in about five minutes, saw no sign of life and said, “It’s dead, sir. You need to buy a new computer. They’re over there…” She started to leave again. I said, “Wait. I told you this was an emergency. If I buy a new computer, I need you to transfer the data from this one.” “We can do that, but it’s going to take two to four days,” she said. “As I said, this is an emergency,” I replied. “Can’t you do the job faster than that?”
“Sir, we have our people working on other computers; that’s the fastest we can be,” she said dismissively, and left again. I was going to ask for assistance in sifting through the options, but didn’t have the chance. I took back the laptop and left.
Well, guess what? When my son got home from work, he took the laptop and returned it a few hours later. It’s working fine.
Well…
1. The Geek Squad staffer was completely unprofessional in demeanor, speech and appearance. Best Buy’s staff are much better, but Geek Squad resides in their stores, and should meet the parent company’s standards.
2. If the woman I dealt with was a computer technician, she was a lousy one. If she is not, as I suspect, then she should not have been diagnosing the laptop.
3. She told me, with the authority of the alleged computer experts, that the laptop was dead. It wasn’t. She dent me off to spend between 500 and 1500 on a new laptop under false pretenses. If I didn’t happen to have a tech expert living under my own roof, I might have taken her at her word, though her demeanor and manner strongly suggested that she, and therefore Geek Squad, and by extension Best Buy, could not be trusted in this matter.
4. Was this just a fluke encounter, with an unqualified staff member overstepping her authority or having a bad day? I don’t care. I needed help and professional guidance, and Geek Squad advertises that this is the service they provide. If customers can’t rely on their professionalism and expertise in every visit, then they can’t rely on them at all.
Geek Squad will not get another chance from me. Right now, I’m trying to decide if I am obligated to seek out someone at Best Buy or Geek Squad who might care enough to address this issue.
Ethics Alarms 
You can dash off an email and see what happens. I give it about a 50% shot. So far I have had better luck with Staples. In the meantime I wait for my camera lens to come back from Long Island after the focus motor conked out for the second time. Thankfully it is still under warranty.
Your mileage may vary, and sometimes it comes down to individual employees, but my experience with Staples has been, by far, more systematically frustrating.
During the Covid lockdowns, some of my offices were having a heck of a time getting printer toner, so I authorized that we would by some cheapo printers from Staples as emergency units. We opened a Staples business account, ordered a set of five online, and bought enough ink with the original purchase to last a year.
Or so I thought.
Three months later, we were almost out. I was patting myself on the back, I said, “Sure, get more, we apparently need it.” Only to find, I kid you not, that staples had discontinued the ink. Not the printers, I could still buy more of those, just the ink. I must have searched their online catalogue for an hour before making what I thought was the call of shame.
I asked the questions:
Me: “Hey… I’m an idiot, I can’t find the ink replacement for a Lexmark (something or other)”
Them: Oh. Huh, let’s look (10 minutes) Huh, it looks like they discontinued it.
Me: “What this just a sku change?”
Them: “No”
Me: “Do you have an alternate product that would work?”
Them: “No”
Me: “Do you have an option to refurbish used units?”
Them: “No”
Me:”…do you have a suggestion on what I should do?”
Them: “You could buy some from a store!”
Me:”…wait. Are you telling me that you still stock these in store?”
Them: “Yes”
Me: “And they aren’t discontinued in store?”
Them: “Right”
Me: “But you’re still selling the actual printers online?”
Them: “Yes”
Me:”….Without any way to sell ink online”
Them: “That’s right.”
Me:”…………..does that make sense to you?”
Them: “….It’s a marketing decision.”
They ended up refunding me for the printers. Which was great, because by that point, our normal printer guys were in a better place.
This “technician’s” all around incompetence is hard to believe. Places like Best Buy and Geek Squad are always dying for your feedback/reviews. This is one instance that their customer service [or extreme lack thereof] must be brought to their attention.
A few years ago, my daughter’s computer was seized by ransomware and a nefarious caller attempted to get money from us to restore it. I took the computer offline, but all of the files were locked and the computer wouldn’t respond. I worked in government at the time and spoke with our IT and cybersecurity staff and was told that there was little that could be done and the files were most likely lost.
I took the laptop to the Geek Squad. They had the laptop for around 4 days and returned it after removing the ransomware and restoring all of the files and operability, something that several experts and online sources had said couldn’t be done.
After that experience, it would take more than one unqualified employee to keep me from going back, although I would speak to the local manager about the incident.
As an addendum to my earlier comment:
Every computer that technicians (Geek Squad or otherwise) work on is someone’s emergency, especially in the DC area. Telling a technical/customer service person “it’s an emergency” will not move you ahead in the cue.
I have never seen a competent computer technician at a store such as Staples or Best Buy. The worst incident I ever had was looking for a printer at Best Buy. They has supposed ‘industry reps’ working for them. I went to a man wearing a HP shirt to ask about the printers. I needed a printer that had true, hardware postscript. The supposed “HP corporate rep” didn’t know what postscript was. When I explained it to him, he said “That is pretty cool”. I told him “Yeah, that is why I need one, which of your HP printers have that” and he said “I have no clue”.
Sorry for your experience, but that seems to be par for the course. Two nights ago, my wife was worried about the economy and asked what we would do if we lost our jobs. I told her that I would probably go get some IT certifications at the tech school in town and make more money than I do now. She said that was incredibly depressing. Yeah, a 6 month program is worth more than 11 years of college and 20 years of experience.
I have had many excellent experiences with DELL. As far as I am concerned they are the “go to” company when it comes to all my computer needs. They stand behind their products with in-house service. The last problem I had with one of their computers they actually sent a repairman out to my house (I just about fell out of my chair). What I know about computers would fit in a thimble. Therefore, I depend on them to take care of my computer needs. In an industry where it’s all jargon and mystery to the average Joe, they make it easy to be a satisfied customer.
The ITs I work with now use Dell exclusively to both supply and repair our computers.
How did your son fix the laptop and what was wrong with it?
Also, you should be backing up your data to the cloud by syncing it with some type of service and backing it up on an external SSD.
My son is magic, and fixes things by just looking at them, or in extreme cases, touching them.
Oh! Good for him.
Did he tell you what was wrong with the laptop and what he did to fix it?
He never does, unless it’s really something embarrassing like, “You have to turn it on.”
So, your son is a Computer Whisperer. Nice.
jvb
New job is basically entirely on the company provided laptop. On a field service call it went dead, I rushed over to a local computer repair shop and said “help”. Laptop was plugged i and working in about 5 minutes. No charge since it was basically user error (ME!) and they were pleasant and even nice that I was an idiot.
Our EA Guru asked: “Was this just a fluke encounter, with an unqualified staff member overstepping her authority or having a bad day?”
Not sure. Costumer service is not at a premium these days. From yesterday’s excursion into Christmas gift purchasing. I wanted to buy my wife a jacket. So, I went to a particular store that caters to leather goods. I presented my thoughts to a sales person, who was quite charming and helpful.
She: “We don’t carry many leather jackets here, but we have these choices. Thoughts?”
Me: “Hmmm . . . That is not something she would like. What do you have in bags or brief cases?”
She: “We have these. I am not sure this is what you want but we have this and a few items over there.”
Me: “That is a nice bag. Would that accommodate her laptop and dentisty things?”
She: “Dentisty things, yes. Not much protection for her laptop, though. This one over here is sturdier and has protection for her laptop. It is a bit more but I think it is nicer.”
Me: “Ah. You’re right. This would be perfect.”
She: “Let me check in the back for a new one in the box.”
She left and went into the storage room, whereupon her co-worker came out of the back room. Not knowing that I had been helped, the new sales rep approached me and stated,
She: “Oh, hello. Have you been helped?”
Me: “Yes. Your friend is checking on a bag for my wife.”
She: “Great. Did you find what you needed? We have everything here.”
Me: “Well, not really. I wanted a leather jacket for my wife but decided on a hand bag.”
She: “Oh. Yeah, I guess I lied about having everything.” (Chuckling.)
Me: “No worries. I liked the bag anyways. I think she will like it.”
She: “Perfect. I do like lying to men, though.”
Me: “Oh? Why on Earth would you tell me that?”
She: “Because guys my age are jerks and deserve to be mistreated.”
Me: (Surprised, but not really, because the strangest things happen to me.) “Uh . . . Okay. But what does that have to do with me? I am not your age and I clearly have no interest in anything other than buying something for my wife.”
She: “I am tired of guys my age – every last one of them is an idiot.”
Me: “You know something young lady, it seems to me that if you constantly have problems with guys your age, then you are the problem. If yo stop hanging with ‘idiots’ then, maybe you wouldn’t have these problems. I mean, self-respect is a virtue, ¿no?”
She: “Huh? See? You are mistreating me now.”
Me: “No, I am not. I am telling you that you have issues or your perspective is the problem.”
She: (In a huff) “Well, take care.” And she scampered off.
Meanwhile, the other sales rep. came out of the storeroom with the bag:
She: Sorry that took a little longer than normal but a tower of boxes fell over and I helped pick it up. Here is the bag. What do you think?”
Me: “No worries. The bag is nice. I think you were right about it. Thanks. By the way, that young lady over there is not very helpful.”
She: “Who? Oh, yeah. She’s got issues. I will talk to her. I hope your wife likes the bag. I think she will. If not, she can return it and get something else.”
Me: “You, young lady, are wonderful. Thanks.”
jvb
I have never used the IT people at BestBuy. When I was first beginning to assemble my home theater system I did visit BB several times. I quickly discovered I knew more about medium to high-end audio than any of the salespeople. And I don’t have a tech background.
Jack may not like this use of his comment section, & I ask him to spike it if he thinks so.
Some Best Buys have a separate, high-end section that they call Magnolia Hi-Fi. The staff for Magnolia receive additional specialized training over & above other Best Buy employees.
It was the Magnolia staff I referred to