Geeksquad and the Web: What Happens When Consumers Stops Being Polite And Start Being Real!
As part of my ongoing MBA classes at Bluffton University I have spent the last several weeks collecting blogosphere and mainstream media references to Geeksquad, the computer repair arm of Best Buy. I will share some of the information I found through del.icio.us and technorati, as well as providing a summary.
Technorati Mentions Per Day:
Keep going for Del.icio.us links and more
Del.icio.us Links:
The Breakdown of Geek Squad references in my Del.icio.us Geek Squad bookmarks.
As of this writing I have 46 bookmarks relating to Geek Squad in my del.icio.us account and 29 of those are complaints, 3 are negative (bad PR but not a complaint), and 8 are positive. Many other tags have been used to showcase what a complaint was about; price, inept, ripoff, fraud. Several other tags came up in my search; employment by Geek Squad, Expose by former employees and the Current CEO (gsexspose), Best Buy’s purchase of SpeakEasy and how it could kill the brand as Best Buy has ruined Geek Squad.
Video:
One of the interesting videos I came across on Youtube about Best Buy is a TV feature in which several repair companies were tested. Several of these exposes have taken place and one company found that Geek Squad charged $249 for 6 minutes of work!
Investigative Report on Computer Repair:
Summary:
Over the course of this experiment I found that many people do not have good customer service experiences with Best Buy’s Geek Squad. Many people attribute this to Best Buy’s takeover of the company which is unfortunate as it puts negative stereotype on computer repair as a whole. My personal experience with Geek Squad has been hit and miss and I believe that if the technicians are not forced to meet selling quotas and instead focus on repairing computers and providing customer service the Geek Squad brand could make a recovery.
As part of this investigation the reality that opinions about a company are easily found in the connected world we live in and the thoughts of disgruntled consumers and those of satisfied customers can and will be louder than any corporate issued PR statement. If a company has an issue with bloggers and customers complaining about their products and services, the answer doe snot lie in a PR campaign or a blog of your own. The solution is to truly improve the customer experience at your company, customers can spread that news too!
Random observation from this study:
If you are a young female on myspace and have a laptop which has been serviced by the Geeksquad, you refer to your laptop by either a given name or Lappy, and speak of it as someone would a pet.
Josh Smith is a blogger, database manager and adjunct professor of business and technology. 
I have waiting all day for a Geek Squad in Plano, Texas to call me back, three (3) appointments missed. I’ve called the trendy techie Geek phones, that is the best, it gets worse aafter that will no returned calls, and no one shows up
Geek Squad Customer Service
I can beat your worst experience with the Geek Squad. I have been waiting since Oct 07 for them to configure a worless network correctly!! In Oct ’07 I called to have a wireless network and range extender configured at my business. The tech arrived an hour late (as he was from the Ontario, CA store and they scheduled him a service call 52 miles away (and allowed him with 15 minutes travel time….) He configured and got everything working, including WEP. In three days it crashed. I called for warranty service right away. They scheduled me for first opportunity-3 weeks later. The date rolled around and noone called or showed up. I called again and ranted and they gave me another appointment for 5 weeks later. When the guy showed up, he took my extender and ethernet router out of the system and said, “you don’t need these”. The system worked for 1 whole day and crashed. I called back and got no response on hold after 29 minutes. I went into the Best Buy store in Victorville, CA and spoke with Geek Sqaud Agent Brian who couldn’t believe how I was treated and arranged for Charles W. (their business guru) to call me to schedule an appointment to solve my problem. The on duty Manager, Nellie also was involved. Guess what? A week later, Charles never called me. I went back into the store and spoke with Service Manager Johnny. He called Mario Gomez, Geek Squad District Manager and stated that Mr. Gomez could authorize the servce and that Gomez promised to call me back that day. Johnny also said he would call me back to confirm that Mr. Gomez had called and resolved my problem. Guess what? Neither Gomez or Johnny ever called me to schedule an appointment with Double Agent Charles W. I then called a Best Buy Asst Store Manager named Katie. She is a “process manager” and told me she was the “buck stops here” kind of gal. She empathized and scheduled Charles W. for a final attempt at salvaging customer service for me. This morning (three weeks later), Charles was scheduled to arrive at 11:15 in the morning. (January 30). Guess what? Charles never called and never showed up!! I called Katie and she stated that Mr. Gomez said that this ticket was open more that 30 days and the warranty period was exceeded so he canceled the service call by Charles. They never called me, never discussed it or tried to solve my problem. I have spent weeks (from Oct 07 until January 08) on hold–telling and retelling this story to Best Buy and Geek Squad manageres and not one of them ever did a thing to make it right. I will continue to tell this story to everyone I meet. Geek Squad is a rip off and is the worst customer service business I have ever encountered.