The misconception of “free” Geek Squad services for products purchased at Best Buy.
Best Buy/Geek Squad
Is Geek Squad Protection plan worth it?
absolutely. gsp is probably the best service that best buy offers imo.
More on reddit.comSwap headphones with geek squad protection plan?
There would need to be an issue (one that is covered under the plan) with the headphones to take advantage of the GSP. It’s not an extended return/exchange plan.
More on reddit.comLet me preface this by saying I was helping three customers as the only CA available at the time this occurred. When I was able to ask the 3rd customer what their question was, they explained they purchased a speaker from Best Buy and couldn’t get it to work with their laptop.
Generally speaking we should charge for any service at the front of geek squad for clients without an active membership, but it can also be at the agents discretion based on the work performed. I basically explained to the client “yes, we can assist with troubleshooting the speaker, but it will be a wait as I’m currently helping these appointments. If you decide to wait and we are able to resolve your issue, there will be a service fee of $39.99”. He then decided it wasn’t worth it and went to return the speaker at customer service.
Later on, the realization dawned on me. If you purchase something at target or any other big box store, do you bring it to an associate and ask them to help troubshoot the product or set it up? No, you ask someone you know or just return the darn thing. Since Best Buy has Geek Squad, it’s the expectation that we help the client figure their tech out just because it was purchased at Best Buy; without paying for the service itself on top of it.
The moral of the story is, once I realized this, I stopped caring so much about charging clients for those “quick fixes” and now just make it as part of the disclaimer when they first come into the line, so that expectation is set. The entitlement of some (not all) customers is unreal sometimes, especially when they see you’re the only one working and are flabbergasted at the concept of being charged for help.
How is a such a large company, so terrible at dealing with their appliances?
We bought an open-box dryer in "excellent" condition. It took 2 weeks for delivery. Meanwhile, I'm hoping it's sunny outside to hang my clothes out to dry. I live in Indiana, so in October, that could go either way. It gets delivered and the technician says to run the dryer for 20 minutes to burn off any smell.
He set the timer for 20 minutes, "made sure it was working okay", and by that, I mean, he waited for 30 seconds and it was running fine. He leaves, and literally within 1 minute of him leaving (the timer said 17 minutes left), it starts a terrible grinding noise that is so loud!
I call and they say they can't do anything until the status of the delivery is updated, which might take 24-48 hours. What!? Are you serious? I'm a software developer... what are they doing that your customer service team cannot override the "status", in the event of these things happening? This is absolutely an emergency and a nightmare.
They should have technicians on-call, specifically when this shit happens. Wait, back up, you should definitely TEST OUT the open-box dryers before selling them to other people. Unless maybe it got damaged in transit, which is a possibility, but still...
Then they say it can take up to 24-48 hours for the status to update, THEN we can call for a technician to come out, OR we have to physically drive to the store, and hope to God they have an open box in "excellent" condition, in stock to exchange it... SO... I HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER 2 WEEKS FOR IT TO GET DELIVERED?
Or even worse, what if they don't have one in stock, and have to call another store and get it delivered to the store first? Or.. woops, nobody explained to me what happens in that case.
WTF? Meanwhile, I have SO MUCH LAUNDRY PILING UP! And I don't have time to waste at a laundry mat. And the whole point is, I SHOULDNT HAVE TO GO TO A LAUNDRY MAT! I PAID OVER $1,000 FOR THIS!!! And who is going to pay for the laundry mat? Them? Nope. Once again, the consumer gets punished for the failings of a major company that can afford to put a damn rush on things.
Then the customer service agent says, we can exchange it for a brand new one.. but we'll have to pay the difference.... OR, you could give a new one since you fucked up and delivered a broken one, after we waited two fucking weeks for it to be delivered. What the hell?
What if we exchange it for a similar one and that one arrives and it too is damaged? Then what? Am I going to have to wait another two weeks to get a dryer I paid over $1,000 for after all was said and done?
This is not efficient customer service. This is not great app development on the developers part. This is insane that such a big company gets away with this shit.