Best Buy at it's Best

Just read this and had to laugh at it. Thought I would share it.

Report says Best Buy 'optimization' is a waste of money

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exampasser

Lol I figured that their so-called "optimization" service was just a rip-off, it's right up there with their extended service plans.

GT-Rob

I worked at bestbuy for a month once (geek squad).

We charged $40 to run a disk that removed some bloatware, and did windows updates. When laptops are $300, its easy to justify spending a couple bucks more.

The service is an INSANE profit for the company. They told me day 1 that the average geek squad employee makes the company $68 for every hour he works (since we usually are doing windows updates 10 at a time), while only being paid $10-14/hr. They hardly make any profit on laptops these days (sometimes none), so this is a huge money maker for the company, and keeps the price of laptops down.

The service (like extended warranties I don't what anyone tells you), is a huge, ripoff, and the only reason they do so well is because customers don't know better. They see the big yellow sign and trust it.

You can always tell whats a huge profit/ripoff based on how hard they push it.

exampasser

If I remember correctly they wanted me to buy a $200 service plan for my $600 laptop. It just makes more sense to put that $200 towards another computer a few years down the road.

GT-Rob

Its the refrigerator rule (as I call it).

98% of all refrigerators either fail within the first week or two because of a faulty build, otherwise they last 30 years. Only 2% fall out of this.

Computers are very similar. They are either broken right away (due to a faulty build), or they last a few years without issues. Sure a fan or HDD might fail, but you need much more than that to justify the extended warranty. Not to mention its usually 1/3 of the total cost, meaning you have to get 1/3 of everything you buy to fail so hard its replaced just to break even.

Claymoore

I'll start this off by saying I am a fan of Best Buy. I worked there in the past (part-time and full-time in different departments) for both pay and, later, the discount. During my first tour there, I was selling $3000 computers with $49 4-year service plans. As one poster said earlier, now they are selling $600 laptops with $200 2-year service plans. I will usually consider service plans based on my past positive experiences, but it just doesn't make sense at that price.

The optimization started as a free in-store setup service that was designed to reduce returns. No more angry customers who had to make long return trips with DOA computers. The setup was also a chance to sell additional serivces, because sometimes customers will listen to the 'tech' people in the black shirts since they think they know more than the salesperson, but the setup was really a win for everyone. Now they use the setup and optimization as a profit center.

Last year I bought a new laptop from Best Buy and it was the last one in the store. The 'optimization' had already been run on it and the salesperson was excited because that meant I wouldn't have to wait on the techs - one less objection to overcome. When I said I didn't want their optimization they still wanted me to pay for it since it had already been done. I still refused and even asked them to put the original software back on the laptop, at which point they caved and let me have the optimization for free.

We bought my mother in-law a new computer from a different retailer for Christmas. After pitiching me service plans and antivirus at the register, the cashier asked if I wanted to pay them to optimize it for me. I said no and the cashier said, "But when we optimize it, it will run 33% faster." I responded that I can optimize it and make it run 50% faster, to which she responded, "Oh, you're one of those people." My wife chimed in with "Yes he is, and we're thankful for it." When I was going to spend Christmas afternoon transferring data anyway, uninstalling some software and a couple of extra reboots wasn't going to be a problem.

msteinhilber

GT-Rob wrote: »

The service (like extended warranties I don't what anyone tells you), is a huge, ripoff, and the only reason they do so well is because customers don't know better. They see the big yellow sign and trust it.

You can always tell whats a huge profit/ripoff based on how hard they push it.

I've purchased a handful of items from Best Buy in the past year or so and I've noticed how they (at least in the store I go to) now try to badmouth the products they sell in an effort to sell the extended warranties.

It's sad that as a majority that consumers seem to be ok with being told "yea this product has a lot of failures with X" and then proceeding with a sale and possibly buying the warranty on top of it.

The best moment was when I bought my MacBook Pro, the salesperson pushed very hard to get me to buy the warranty. He first mentioned how terrible the power cords were and pointed out how their floor model was failing already. Then he went on to the fact that they don't have a user replaceable battery. I finally told the guy what I did for a living and that I am not at all concerned about any issues that arise since I can easily fix them myself. He continued to push hard again "yea but Apples are nothing like working on a PC, you need to take classes to be able to repair a Mac".

Slowhand

When I was in Best Buy last, it was to quickly purchase a laptop for someone in the company I worked for who was about to go on the road unexpectedly and needed a machine to work with. Having been in sales, (both at CompUSA and at 24 Hour Fitness,) before I was in IT, I have some experience with how these upsell-scams work. Once the sales rep tried to sell me the "optimization", I couldn't help but grin. He gave similar lines that they list in that article, ones telling of doom and gloom if I didn't pay the money, and he made sure to talk to me in the simplest, most dumbed-down terms so that I'd understand how "nasty those dang bugs and errors on the hard drive were".

I kept him on the hook for almost half an hour, (I had already picked out which laptop I was going to pick up before I entered the store,) to make sure he got to suffer and lose time with other potential targets. . . err. . . "customers" that day. After much ado, much over-confident fast-talking on his part, I took out one of my business cards and introduced myself as Systems Engineer for Mind Control Software. I told him what the laptop was for, that would already be installing the Pro version of Vista on the machine from our volume licensing agreement, and that AV, MS Office, and even Adobe Master Suite CS3 was already taken care of. He got visibly shaken, didn't really know what to say, and had completely forgotten to ask me if I wanted to buy the extended warranty on the laptop. By the time I had the box in my hand and was ready to head to the register, I mentioned that our company would be buying the extended warranty through HP, so there was no need to spend any time telling me about their own, in-house warranties, just to "not waste any more of his time".

He was the exact type of sales-weasel that Best Buy is famous for, the kind of salesman I used to hate working with when I was in the wonderful world of retail, and I'm sure he's filled more than one little old lady's head full of fear in order to sell those damn optimization packages. I don't know if he cried, but I'm hoping that he went into the back room after that and died a little.

msteinhilber

Slowhand wrote: »

He was the exact type of sales-weasel that Best Buy is famous for, the kind of salesman I used to hate working with when I was in the wonderful world of retail, and I'm sure he's filled more than one little old lady's head full of fear in order to sell those damn optimization packages. I don't know if he cried, but I'm hoping that he went into the back room after that and died a little.

He was probably disappointed he didn't get a mark on the whiteboard for selling a warranty that night.

When I relocated and was waiting for a position to open up at the new location I moved to when I was working with my prior employer, I ended up doing a brief stint at Office Depot for some extra cash for a few months. They had the extended warranty and swap out warranties known there as Kemper Plans at the time. I hated pushing them since I felt like such a tool and I knew I wasn't in there for the long haul so I never really bothered. One time a customer actually wanted it so I sold one. The store's GM got so excited, gave me a firm smack followed by a sort of rough massage of my shoulders and said "Great job on the KP Mike!!" and told me to go write my name on the whiteboard in the break room.

I never again sold another warranty during my short stay there.

tiersten

The claims they make and suspicious stock allocation where nearly all the laptops are pre"optimised" are a bit shady. As others have already posted about, this is generally how it works in retail especially when commission and sales targets are involved. You'll get similar dubious information when shopping for most large value purchases like cars or AV equipment.

One thing is that the services they offer aren't aimed at the people who frequent sites like TechExams. I know people who do pay for similar sorts of things even though they know they could do it themselves. They're okay with paying the charges however because they just want it to be simple. Take it home and plug it in. Similar things for extended warranty or aftersales care. They just don't want to worry about it.

Claymoore

When I first worked at Best Buy in college (almost 15 years ago - ouch!), attaching a $49 4-year PSP to a $3000 Packard Bell was a no-brainer. At first, they didn't even track our warranty sales but eventually we had a sales goal of like 1.4% revenue from warranties. During my last stint about 7 years ago, everything was tracked and the goal was 8%. Trying to attach $200 3-year plan to a $500 e-machine was much more difficult.

Then a sales manager let slip some information that nobody else in the department seemed to really understand but me. Best Buy was selling custom-order PCs from different vendors at the time, and the way they tracked the % revenue for the warranty was to use the processor price only. Those custom PCs also allowed me to sell a $150 OEM copy of Office rather than the $400 retail copy, so I would steer my customers who wanted Office to the custom-build kiosk to save them $250. Meanwhile I am attaching a $200 PSP to a $300 processor and just slaying everybody else's warranty percentage numbers. Just because we weren't on commission doesn't mean we weren't competitive.

Best Buy wasn't my first 'computer' job, but knowledge and contacts gained while working there helped me start my career. I never worked in the tech booth or Geek Squad, though. Even though I was better technically than most of them I was too valuable on the sales floor. Sales techniques I learned there and at a more evil location later help me in my current job as a consultant. Our sales execs aren't afraid to take me on sales calls to help them close deals and I work to find more business at our current clients. Everyone needs to be able to sell themselves to advance their careers.

Slowhand

tiersten wrote: »

Similar things for extended warranty or aftersales care. They just don't want to worry about it.

This is basically the reason I like getting extended warranties on devices like laptops or replacement warranties on more expensive "toys" like iPods. There are plenty of things I can fix myself, but I don't have the patience or the money to shell out on replacement hardware. The one thing I used to push when working at CompUSA was the in-house laptop warranty, which covered replacing the screen, regardless of the reason, twice in the span of three years. Considering this was a no-questions-asked kind of service, we covered a lot more than most manufacturer's warranties and had a lot of happy customers that didn't have to deal with dead pixels or paying out the nose for a new screen. . . i.e., having to get a new laptop because there was a crack in the screen of their six month-old one.

If the item is expensive to work on or expensive to replace, I consider the warranty. As a sales rep, though, I could never bring myself to sell people things they didn't need, so I wasn't popular with the store management. Luckily, I spent very little time selling and a lot more time fixing things in the shop.

CSCOnoob

GT-Rob wrote: »

We charged $40 to run a disk that removed some bloatware, and did windows updates. When laptops are $300, its easy to justify spending a couple bucks more.

We did a little more than just doing windows update and removed bloatware. By accessing msconfig and deleting some of the unwanted startup programs and running defrag on old computers. Hah!

eMeS

I once bought a laptop at Best Buy made of a horse's mane, pillow cases, and glitter from a very beautiful young saleswoman. I think it might have also had a sticker of a unicorn on it as well.

She smelled really nice and was wearing tight khaki pants...seemed like a no-brainer to buy the service plan, join the Best Buy rewards club, as well as sign up for 10 different magazine subscriptions at the register....

MS

msteinhilber

eMeS wrote: »

She smelled really nice and was wearing tight khaki pants...seemed like a no-brainer to buy the service plan, join the Best Buy rewards club, as well as sign up for 10 different magazine subscriptions at the register....

MS

And you went back 5 more times that same year and now you are a Reward Zone Silver Member and earn 25% more points!

BTW, you forgot to finance your purchase at 0% for 6 months

I picked up a bargain on a blu-ray player not too long ago, they tried so damned hard to sell me a HDMI cable for nearly the cost of the blu-ray player. Sorry, but no thanks.

eMeS

msteinhilber wrote: »

BTW, you forgot to finance your purchase at 0% for 6 months

Actually I'm usually all over such deals for anything that I need to buy. I actually pay that crap off before it comes due...If someone wants to loan me money for 6 months to a 1 year for free, I'm all over it.

Free money gets me more excited that the hot latina saleswoman with the inappropriately tight khakis, bad highlight job, and too much perfume...

MS

kalebksp

eMeS wrote: »

I once bought a laptop at Best Buy made of a horse's mane, pillow cases, and glitter from a very beautiful young saleswoman. I think it might have also had a sticker of a unicorn on it as well.

I hope you rushed home and installed Hannah Montana Linux on it! That would be sweet!

eMeS

This thread made me think, as much as you can say bad about Best Buy, Circuit City had to be about 10x worse.

Also, if you live in an area that has Conn's, then you'll understand that they have to be about 10x worse than Circuit City was...can someone explain how they're still in business?

MS

eMeS

kalebksp wrote: »

I hope you rushed home and installed Hannah Montana Linux on it! That would be sweet!

No, I paid the Geek Squad to preinstall my pr0n on it for me though....

The service only costs $250, and it runs 57% faster than simply loading the pr0n myself!

Plus, I signed up for their pay-per-click service because I can't be bothered with technical details like "double-clicking on icons". This isn't like Google AdWords...no, instead I pay $1.50 to Best Buy each time I need someone to double-click the mouse for me. Well worth it IMO...

msteinhillber is right though, that HDMI cable sounds like a scam.....

MS

RobertKaucher

Well I have to say that you guys as (at least relatively) reasonable, tech savvy individuals do not see this from the perspective of a person who works there.

I worked at the Geek Squad for nearly three years full time and I work part time at the Geek Squad right now for the discount. My wife wants a new Washer/Dryer. Just recently I had my @$$ reamed by a mother whose teenage son had clearly abused his iPod. It had a bent case where he had pried off the top and had three dents in the metal case where it had clearly been dropped or thrown with enough force to bend the metal. Of course she claimed this was normal use.

Customers there will ***** and whine and even throw temper tantrums until they get their way. Attempting to sell the service plans and Geek Squad services is not just about the bottom line it is also a big CYA. Because too many people come back with their laptop damaged or a bad hard drive or a bad power supply only to find out that they are out of the warranty or that the mfg warranty does not cover orange juice having been spilt on the laptop. And then the go bulistic! One lady came to me with a failed external hard drive and was pissed that her backup was now gone. I said "It’s no problem! I'll replace the drive under the mfg warranty and we can make a new backup for you." But she didn't have a backup. Her "backup" drive was really her primary storage. Her husband had just moved everything to the external drive. Yet she held Best Buy personally responsible for her lack of understanding of the vocabulary of her own native language. I can personally attest to the fact that every full time Geek Squad agent has to deal with a dumb@$$ customer like this at least twice a week. And the worst ones are always the ones who, when they first came in to purchase the computer or whatever, claimed to know what they are doing or to be “good with computers.”

Just Saturday I had a guy bring me an older Dell with a Celeron processor and ask me if a PCI video card would allow him to “display stuff on his TV instead of his monitor.” I said it sure will and I got things going. I soon discovered that his PC only had 256 MB of RAM and that he wanted to use this for Netflix. Not a problem. He had been hanging around for a while so we cut him a deal on the RAM. One of the guys I work with was smart enough to test the PC using his own Netflix account only to discover that he had a bad NIC. When asked the computer had not been used in over 4 months. We offered him a new network card for free and he asked for the store manager and began to gripe and complain that we were trying to nickel and dime him. When the manager asked what he could do to make the situation better he asked for a new PC. His complaint was that we should have known upfront that his PC would not do what he wanted and informed him of that. The manager said “Ultimately, sir, we rely on you to know that your computer is nearly unusable and tell us that upfront.” Another satisfied customer! So have a little patience for a company that is actually trying to do things right…

networker050184

Well said Robert. I don't work at Best Buy, but I can only imagine the type of home users that come in there raising hell about any and everything.

Hyper-Me

I'd like to know what the magical key is to get on at geek squad.

I'd like to work there for the discount to pick a few things up. Ive probably applied 10 times over the past 6 years only to be turned down every single time. I did actually get an interview once and I could thoroughly answer any question they asked me. I know i dont fail the personality test things cause I learned long ago how to get past those.

msteinhilber

Hyper-Me wrote: »

I'd like to know what the magical key is to get on at geek squad.

I'd like to work there for the discount to pick a few things up. Ive probably applied 10 times over the past 6 years only to be turned down every single time. I did actually get an interview once and I could thoroughly answer any question they asked me. I know i dont fail the personality test things cause I learned long ago how to get past those.

You clearly haven't attached a sheet to your resume offering a protection plan against:

No show without prior notice
Showing up late
Showing up without proper attire

As well as a sheet offering to reduce poor work ethic by 50% and increase productivity by 40% for a small one time sign on bonus of $250.

Try that, I bet you get the gig.

RobertKaucher

Hyper-Me wrote: »

I'd like to know what the magical key is to get on at geek squad.

I'd like to work there for the discount to pick a few things up. Ive probably applied 10 times over the past 6 years only to be turned down every single time. I did actually get an interview once and I could thoroughly answer any question they asked me. I know i dont fail the personality test things cause I learned long ago how to get past those.

They may have just felt you were over qualified. Many of the precincts tend to be less technical than the one I work at. 3 of the part timers at mine are developers, 2 are net admins (including myself) and of the full timers all are enrolled in some sort of IT related program at the local university. One of them is one of the most tallented kids I have ever met.

RobertKaucher

eMeS wrote: »

I once bought a laptop at Best Buy made of a horse's mane, pillow cases, and glitter from a very beautiful young saleswoman. I think it might have also had a sticker of a unicorn on it as well.

She smelled really nice and was wearing tight khaki pants...seemed like a no-brainer to buy the service plan, join the Best Buy rewards club, as well as sign up for 10 different magazine subscriptions at the register....

MS

Did Dynamik hack your password again and post under your account?

RobertKaucher

eMeS wrote: »

msteinhillber is right though, that HDMI cable sounds like a scam.....

MS

This is the only place where there is margin. Employees get next nothing off of product like blu-ray players or computers and employee price is damn close to cost. Never buy a cable from a retail store!

Hyper-Me

RobertKaucher wrote: »

They may have just felt you were over qualified. Many of the precincts tend to be less technical than the one I work at. 3 of the part timers at mine are developers, 2 are net admins (including myself) and of the full timers all are enrolled in some sort of IT related program at the local university. One of them is one of the most tallented kids I have ever met.

There is no such thing as overqualified, really. If someone wants a job and both parties agree on a wage then how is someone over qualified?

That only comes in when managers get jealous and think that the person might overshadow them and move up fast.

tiersten

RobertKaucher wrote: »

This is the only place where there is margin. Employees get next nothing off of product like blu-ray players or computers and employee price is damn close to cost. Never buy a cable from a retail store!

Is Belkin still the brand of choice for overpriced cables or has it gone to Monster now?

We don't have Best Buy over here but I've had a salesperson try to make me buy a premium modem cable because it was "guaranteed" to give me 20% faster DSL...

Slowhand

Hyper-Me wrote: »

There is no such thing as overqualified, really. If someone wants a job and both parties agree on a wage then how is someone over qualified?

That is how it should be, regardless of the office-politics or ego-stroking that goes on. In many cases, companies worry about hiring someone who is "overqualified" because they think that person is only using their company as a stepping-stone to something better. Of course, if the company would invest in their employee to begin with and do what it takes to keep them, the whole argument would be a moot point.

tpatt100

I really have no issues with Best Buy selling their services and warranties. I don't consider them "rip offs" because it is not the work that is being done but the time involved. It might sound like a rip off to charge 75 dollar to reload Windows but the time your taking up on the KVM does have a price.

I remember back in my early days and people bugging me to reload their machines and gave me 30 bucks and said "well all you did was load the software". I gave up and told them "yeah but I am sitting there all damn day waiting for crap to finish".

For the non IT crowd I say the services are fine, I only buy extended warranties on expensive items over say 1500 or so.

what I don't care for is being offered the warranty and come to find out the manufacturer warranty which is usually on the inside documentation covers the same crap as what BB or Lowes or what ever offered.