I asked Tom for permission to pimp one of the holiday specials that Geek Squad will be running between November 6th and December 31st, mainly because it’s not going to be advertised very heavily.
Since you guys are the ones friends and family are going to bug to help them setup their wireless networks for their new XBox 360s, PSPs or PCs, I thought you might consider escaping the pain of forced free tech support and directing them to your local Best Buy or standalone Geek Squad store.
During the above dates, if you purchase any wireless network router, desktop or laptop, you can get a Geek Squad Agent out to your house to get the wireless router and two devices (ie, a desktop and a 360) setup for $79. Additional devices are $50 and the hardware itself, obviously, is not included in that price.
The $79 includes setup of the encryption and security features that your hardware includes as well as file and printer sharing setup.
You can call 1-800-Geek-Squad for details, visit Geeksquad.com or stop in any local Best Buy or standalone Geek Squad store.
Side note: Am I the only one who thinks that the whole Geek Squad idea is just brilliant? It differentiates Best Buy from its competetors, adds/grows their tangental revenues, and taps into the pro-geek 90’s zeitigeist.
I can’t tell. It seems insanely overpriced to me for what it does, but then I know how to do that stuff.
Do the squaddies actually get a substantial portion of those exorbitant fees, or do they basically pull in $10/hour or somesuch while Best Buy gets loaded off of 20 minut hard-drive installs and network set ups?
When I first joined Geek Squad it did seem a little over-the-top, but the culture is oddly infectious. Corporate pushes the “FBI Agent” side over the nerdy side, but the forms and brochures have enough self-referential humor to help us defuse what can be a normally stressful and aggravating situation for the customer, that of having an often vitally important piece of their lives not working.
As for prices, if you’re comfortable with hand-tuning your PC or setting up hardware and software, then you’re probably not going to pay someone to do what Geek Squad does.
On the flip side, if you’re an average non-tech consumer and you’ve just spent four hours on the telephone with the support desk of your hardware’s manufacturer and still not getting anywhere, paying a flat-rate fee with a 90-day guarantee isn’t so crazy.
Realistically, the service pricing isn’t all that different from most other in-home services. Even 10 minute oil change shops aren’t priced that much differently when you break everything down to a per-hour charge.
On top of it all, the next time you have that uncle with the bad breath that you don’t particularly like to deal with asking if you’re coming home to visit the family this holiday season, all because he really wants you to fix his self-inflicted spyware problem, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone local to him to send him off to get his problem fixed? ;)
No, in-store Agents do not work on commission, but they do get a bunch of nice little benefits such as Best Buy employee discounts, 401k, health benefits, employee stock purchase programs and so forth.
It certainly beats the local alternative, which is telephone tech support. That’s a job that will suck all life out of you. At least with in-store support, the customer will usually leave their machine to your care and you can fix it without having to explain to them how to “right-click” for the tenth time over the telephone.
As for in-home agents, they get all of the above, better pay, GPS cellphone and of course a company car.
I’m curious, what’s a typical turnaround time on these services? I generally do all my PC stuff myself, but when I replaced my motherboard a few months ago, it all went horribly wrong and I was reduced to taking it to a nearby Compusa for help. They said it would take 4-5 days for them to get to it, so I just took it into work and bribed the MIS guys instead :)
On what planet do any low-level, or even mid-range, employees get a “substantial portion” of any fees or revenue? Cuz I might like to work there.
This kind of service is invaluable for people like my parents, who are pretty good at breaking their PC. (Fortunately, I live in another state so I can’t do the support on their PC.)
It’s $200 to remove spyware… why not just buy a whole new computer?
Chumps who can’t maintain their own machine should just buy macs. Not putting down macs, I have a toy minimac and I bought my mother a 17" iMac, they’re great little computers.
She was known as “Typhoid Mom” when she infected, literally, an entire town and every computer in the entire hospital where she works with multiple spyware and viruses. Buying her a mac was a service to humanity itself.
I think what Geek Squad and similiar outfits do is great. I’ve made the mistake of “adopting” the PCs of 2 of my ex-neighbors and my parents. Now I literally spend at least 4 hours every weekend driving to one of those 3 locations because I’m basically responsible for having the gall to connect them to the internet. I set them up, so now I own it. When they get a “page can’t load” error, they don’t hit “refresh”, they call me. Worse, they start to follow those crazy, default convoluted instructions that MS provides…i.e.:
“In Microsoft Internet Explorer, click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Options. Click the Connections tab, and then click Settings.
The settings should match those provided by your network administrator or Internet service provider (ISP)…”…and so on…
You won’t believe where they end up. And I am responsible, because I set it up. It’s a nightmare. God Bless Geek Squad. I finally gave one of my ex-neighbors the number of a local “Nerds-to-Go” squad and told him that I was insufficient. Computers are not like TVs, they don’t just work. And for 75% of the people who own one, that fact does not compute. When they get a “page can’t load” screen, or when their printer paper jams, it’s the equivalent of my car’s headgasket blowing off - - I have to take it in for repair.
On what planet do any low-level, or even mid-range, employees get a “substantial portion” of any fees or revenue? Cuz I might like to work there.[/quote]
That’s the part I don’t get. (And I mean literally I just don’t get it… I know there’s logic behind it and it probably makes sense logically, but it just doesn’t click.)
If you have skills that are worth $80/10 min of work, why the hell are you working for $8/hour instead of selling your services for 25-50% of that price? Surely there are enough price conscious consumers out there that running your own business (even after you factor out advertising costs and such) is a better idea?
Why aren’t people burying Bust Buy for their exorbitant rates? Captive audience?
Well, sure… if you’re willing to take all of the risk, pay your own taxes and health insurance, establish a reputation, etc. It’s not easy to just say, “Hey, pay me $100 and I’ll fix your computer.” We all work for other people for safety, regular paychecks, etc.
But people will take their machine to where they bought it.
Well, sure… if you’re willing to take all of the risk, pay your own taxes and health insurance, establish a reputation, etc. It’s not easy to just say, “Hey, pay me $100 and I’ll fix your computer.” We all work for other people for safety, regular paychecks, etc.[/quote]
Derek gives his reasoning, which is pretty much what Steve said, in this post.
Heh … If only most wireless network setups were mere ten minutes of setup time. The average setup time is around an hour when you toss in physically setting up the equipment, changing their settings to how the customer wants it, fiddling around with Windows networking, setting up file and printer sharing, then sitting down with the customer to show them what you’ve done and how they can actually make use of that network, including file and print sharing.
Add in the average drive time to and from a customer’s house and you’ve got the usual hour and a half that we automatically schedule an in-home Agent for on any particular job.
As for operating system service calls for things like spyware, getting out of there within two hours is considered absolutely amazing. Especially in a world where damnable things like nail.exe exist. :x
My company does a lot of business fixing wireless problems. For less than any national geek outfit, of course. :lol:
Of course, we also do work for a lot of small businesses, like lawyers, real estate, doctors and dentists, etc… If you know your stuff, are honest and not ridiculously priced, you can succeed in this business.
Off the thread subject a tad, but it falls in with this post: These guys are downright cheap compared to some home services.
My water heater went on the fritz a few weeks ago, and I thought it might still be under warranty so I called the folks that had installed it, back when my house was built.
Turns out it wasn’t under warranty, but I found this out after I’d setup the appt. I decided to let them come out anyway, as they stated they worked for “flat fees”, and I’m a fairly busy guy. Keep in mind that I already knew what the problem was, I was just too lazy to fix it.
My wife was home when they arrived and she called me at work and said the estimate was done… and it would be $249 to fix it. I told her to tell the plumbers to leave, and not to let the door hit them in the ass on the way out.
After work I stopped by Home Depot and bought a lower thermostat for $7.48. It took me 5 minutes to swap it out when I got home (turn the breaker off, 2 screws for the cover plate, two wires to swap to the new unit, reinstall cover plate). Fuckers.
Heh … If only most wireless network setups were mere ten minutes of setup time. The average setup time is around an hour when you toss in physically setting up the equipment, changing their settings to how the customer wants it, fiddling around with Windows networking, setting up file and printer sharing, then sitting down with the customer to show them what you’ve done and how they can actually make use of that network, including file and print sharing.
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Yeah, I was being flippant. But still $80/hr vs., what, $10? $15? Where I work the benefits package (health care, retirement, etc…) is calculated out at a 30% premium or so more or less. Surely that’s recoupable from the massive difference between billed rate and what they pay you to do it? (Or my estimations about what you make are way off or something.) Is there that much overhead in advertising/value in a storefront vs. a listing in the paper?
As for operating system service calls for things like spyware, getting out of there within two hours is considered absolutely amazing. Especially in a world where damnable things like nail.exe exist. :x
Yeah, but the rate goes up commensurately, no? I mean, as is they’re charged $80 for a network installation as a premium on top of buying hardware, that’s not a normal price, right?
Though you have convinced me I should look for a geek squad gift certificate for my dad if he ever decides to become more computer literate. :)
Keep in mind that I already knew what the problem was, I was just too lazy to fix it
My parents own a service shop for major electronics manufacturers (SONY, Toshiba, Sharp, etc) and I remember hearing this line hundreds of times when I had to help out during the weekends during my high school years.
95% of the time, the guy’s talking out of his ass and was fishing around for a better deal. Jeez :P
It’s good to hear of a case where a guy can actually back up the big talk :)
So are your parents incapable of using a phone or do they just not have one? Because living 500 miles from both my and my girlfriend’s family has done nothing to curb requests for tech support. Not just for computers; they ask about all sorts of home electronics, too. Fortunately, this racks up mondo goodwill points, so I am like unto a god whenever I go and visit. Especially because I can then do in-home service.
