Geek Squad rivals: Bring ‘em on!

I have worked in a Precinct for over two years and have seen some serious b.s. from both best buy/geek squad and the so-called “mom and pop” independent repair techs.
We don’t charge an hourly fee so a simple hardware install doesn’t end up costing some two or three hundred dollars (yup, that’s what I have had clients say it cost them to have a printer installed by an independent “IT” guy who charge 40 bucks an hour). I ended up fixing the problem for the client (a certified tech installed the older version of the software rather than downloading the updated version) and only charging him only 30 bucks for it.
I yet to remove viruses by replacing a hard drive or removing an os. I have never been backed up several weeks. Maybe several days but not weeks. The only time I have had to charge more than two hundred dollars for anything was when a very insistent client wanted to upgrade everything in his rig to the point that he might as well bought a new pc, which we suggested to him over and over again.
All but two members of my team have some level of certification/degrees, our supervisor just got her CCNP. I’ve sat in on several interviews for potential Agents and yet to turn anyone down for being “too qualified”. Maybe “too arogant” or they didn’t have the personality to work on a team or with customers, but never because they know too much about a subject. Seriously. Why would anyone turn down an prospective employee because they possesed a lot of talent? Unless that talent comes with the typical “IT jerk” price tag which no one really wants to pay for
And I’ve seen some shady things on best buys end too. There are many ways we can fix a pc, and we aren’t often encouraged to use the fastest or cheapest solutions.
Both geek squad and the independent repair tech have a lot to offer consumers, but neither will grow or stay viable if they cannot compete by offering affordable services and customer friendly support.

According to Best Buy PR, “[Third-party provider] SupportSpace provides the platform and added capacity for overflow for the Geek Squad Online Support capability.”

In response to “Agent Newland” post about the geek squad’s best of the best. What makes them the best of the best? I currently hold the mcitp certifications for windows 7 already. Does that make me better than the best of the best. How many Gueek squad members can say the same?

pay an extra 150 bucks for front of the line service, or extra 500 for in home, and that doesn’t even factor in the actual labor for the job. I consult with multiple home users and I have never written a bill for 500 for one visit, unless I am doing multiple pc’s and networking and backup, and that’s the whole bill, not

Your tools get approved by the legal team so that makes them better than the tools found on the internet, and you need to have contracts written up?? Please you should of saved yourself the embarrassment of even posting anything, because you did nothing but prove to people why they should not use the geek squad and use local consultant’s in the area that they live in.

I am going to take your post and carry it with me as a laminate to show customers that complain about pricing, what their option is. I’m sure I will be getting some more business. Thanks a lot.

GEEK Squad is a RIP-OFF they charge way to much and I’ll never use them again. BEST BUY is going to suffer from this consumer cause I doubt I’ll ever buy from them again

mac’s have issues too…their hard drives and ram fail all the time…and yes i am a part time geek squad agent.
http://www.wix.com/reese0809

Actually, Geek Squad has never used a 3rd party for any customer repairs. Best Buy did use a 3rd party before consolidating everything under the Geek Squad brand. Geek Squad has also used remote support and repair for several years now and they are NOT based overseas. As for in-store repairs, the precincts are only as good as the techs that man them. Many are only capable of wiping the hard drive and reloading from restore disks. Others can and do repair hardware and software problems properly. Sadly, real PC support at Best Buy will go away before long as they are much more focused on selling new pc’s or Macs and charging greatly inflated prices for service plans and labor to install security software and data transfer services. I was a supervisor with Geek Squad for almost five years and the unit pales in comparison to what it was when I began and bears almost no resemblance to what Robert Stephens created. I am happy to no longer be under the Best Buy umbrella that does all it can to exploit its customers and employees.

If you want really good service, find a a local independent shop. Usually you can find someone who is much cheaper and far more competent than this big repair operations. Just do your homework and look around. My local shop does free diagnosis, up front pricing and almost always has 24 hour or less turn around time. I first went there after Geek Squad quoted me over 200 for virus removal. He did it for $65 and I had it back later the same day.

It blows my mind that Geeksquad still floats after all these years. The precinct I worked at had one intelligent person working there for every 5 that didn’t have a clue. We also had the most useless management who would never follow company policies and never back us up. The whole system is a joke. It got to the point where I was referring people to other local businesses because the problems they had were out of the league of most of the people working there.

Getting out of the WeakSquad was the best thing I’ve ever done. BBY brainwashes it’s employees into thinking they are providing some sort of great service and big favor to the victims/customers that come in with computer problems, as Agent Newland has demonstrated.

I’ve seen the service centers and they are scary places where computers go to die.

No offense, but Geek Squad is probably the last place you want to go. Virus “cleaning” means erasing your hard drive and being forced to purchase a new hard drive in the process.

Let’s face it. IT guys where they belong, like corporate offices, make five times as much as these Geek Squad guys do – and there is a reason for that.

I love the Geek Squad faithful who comment to make their beloved service sound so much better. It’d be great if the individual “precincts” had anywhere close to the “best of the best” — but they don’t. They hire low-wage folks who know how to follow instructions.

As an IT Pro, I have numerous clients I have “saved” from paying the exorbitant fees. I’ve also repaired computers that Geek Squad “fixed” for now clients of mine.

The ironic thing is that when I was unemployed, I applied to work for Geek Squad and was turned down because I was “over qualified”. Wouldn’t you as a company want folks who actually have knowledge in the IT field and don’t just have a little A+ certification indicating they simply know their way around the computer and know computer terminology? I would … unfortunately, they want low-cost labor who can follow instructions and not think for themselves. That’s dangerous to them.

This article is misleading. Geek Squad WAS partnered with a third party previously, but that partnership ended earlier this year. Online support (from support.geeksquad.com) is provided by Geek Squad Covert Agents. They are full agents, not outsourced, located all around the country. They are, honestly, the best of the best. Other support companies just download whatever free tools they want off the internet (which is fine), but Geek Squad has to get all their tools approved by the legal team, and have contracts written up. That means that we have a limited toolset, even more so for our covert agents (since they can’t transfer programs as easily). They focus mainly on manual removals, sorting through the registry and finding infected files by hand.

@Charles: I’m sorry your local precinct is so backed up, my precinct is usually 3-5 days for turnaround, but the company just implemented some major changes that backed us up a little bit. And, in fact, if you need your computer fixed RIGHT NOW!!! you can pay an extra $150 in-store to go to the front of the line, or pay an extra $500 in-home to have someone out within an hour or two.

I dont know i also see American techs that use services like cross loop to do remote support and they are much cheaper than geek squad and more qualified. I think geek squad will just do sso much marketing that they will get a huge percentage of the maarket.
you can find out more about cross loop at http://number1antivirus.com

Ah, but there are national service providers other than Geeks and Support.com. Check out the franchising world, where Computer Troubleshooters, CMIT, Fast Teks, and others have built a business model with better service through locally owned service providers working together through a national (or, in the case of Computer Troubleshooters, global) network.

Best Buy may do remote support… but I work in IT, and I will tell you how this will go down. The guys in India or Pakistan will do the work for less, period. You can’t compete against someone who makes 50 dollars a month. Remote support means, that it can be done anywhere… Dell has done remote support from India for ages now. I see the American based companies adopting this, as a last ditch effort to hold on to customers, and get something done to their PC’s in an acceptable time frame. Usually Geek Squad is backed up for 2 or 3 weeks and people don’t have that kind of time to wait to have someone fix their pc, so they get remote support.

In this article apple ranks 4th in failure rates (after 3 PC makers). What a joke. Apples have the same intel processors and guts that every other computer does with a shiny Linux based interface for people not smart enough to use anything but icons. Nothing spectacular about it. I guess when an OS needs to run business applications, not just video and music editing, it is heavier. When NASA, Livermore Labs or any other people that must use machines for scientific use start using MACs, I’ll be convinced that they’re fantastic.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/11/17/reliability.study.has.apple.4th.place/

Funny that they report this Geek Squad has been remotely fixing computers for over 7 months now

I know your comment, “Perhaps you’re lucky enough to never have needed consumer tech support. (If that’s the case, either you don’t own a computer, or you own a Mac)” was tongue-in-cheek but that, in fact, has been my experience: After almost 20 years of personal computer experience, I switched to Mac (24″ iMac) about 18 months ago. Any problems I have encountered since then have been minor things that I was able to handle myself. Using a Mac is such a relief…

I’ve got 2 computers named Mac
and finally am on the right track
Though XP I must
For OSn I lust
My future will get here I trust.
http://wereport.com/

Geek Squad has done tech work via remote access for years now. This isn’t a new thing.