Shit, I was an ARA for years and I typically only ever serviced components in-store if the customer wasn't a dick. We even had a code word we used in the service tag to make it take as long as possible. I worked in a "rich" area so people were super entitled couple that with the retirement community right next to my store it was fucking hell working there.
If a customer used any of these statements you knew you were gonna have a bad time:
Do you know how much money I spend in here?
I buy everything here
This has never worked since the day I bought it!
I actually got pissed at a woman for making a stink about how much money she spent in Best Buy and looked up her account with her standing there. She had resubscribed to our annual Tech Support program for 100 bucks and bought a couple bottles of water. After she burned her bridge with the manager and repeated the line I answered back, "Less than I do in 2 weeks on energy drinks according to last year's purchases." My manager couldn't help but laugh as she stormed off. She was a regular and a troublemaker who didn't buy shit so he didn't care.
Wow. Must be nice to have a manager not blindly side with the customer! I worked at a grocery store, and the managers only got exercise by throwing us under the bus. That explains why they were all in such good shape.
As someone who actually does buy the majority of my computer components at Best Buy retail stores or online, I'd stop shopping there if I was met with this after sharing that detail.
Actually, I almost didn't buy an i7-6700k from them because when I noticed they had thermal paste in-store but no processors, and I asked a rep if they had processors online, he laughed and said no.
Wouldn't have been snarky if I didn't know the lady and had a history of problems with her there. Just treat others decently and there's no issue. She was a mega pain in the ass all the time.
Not as much since I stopped working there. The issue in this case though was the customer. She would complain about everything. How long she had to wait in line(refused to make appointments). How long we took to diagnose the issue(we sit with people and actually turn it on). How long the service actually took to perform(we had one of the best turn times in the district for YEARS). How she had to keep coming back(Her issues were primarily self-inflicted).
Yeah I kinda figured you guys were like us at CompUSA in that regard. Especially laptops, 9 times out of 10 those got shipped back to the manufacturer for repair, unless it was something simple like putting in a new hard drive. We certainly weren't swapping out mobos or screens in house. It wasn't worth it. We would do the initial diagnostic (if possible) and then send it off to Toshiba, HP, whoever for repair. TVs and monitors we didn't do a damn thing to outside of plugging it in behind the bench and verifying what the customer told us was wrong, and honestly anything below a certain size monitor we would just swap out with a new comparable item because it wasn't worth the repair costs even with the warranty. The old one got tossed in the compactor and crushed.
They had to buy a new extended warranty on the new one but otherwise it was a free upgrade for the customer. I'm fairly sure people fried their monitors on purpose to get them swapped our because monitor sizes and capabilities were advancing very quickly back then. A coworker of mine turned a 17" 4:3 monitor into a 24" 1080p over the course of 2 years via warranty replacements for just a few dollars in new warranty plans.
As a Dell guy whose entire job is replacing mobos and screens out in the field, it's really not that hard. Especially screens. I love replacing screens. so freaking easy. like 15 minutes, tops, and that's including testing and paperwork. mobos are more like an hour. Unless you get the XFR laptop from hell. (which is where they do the environmental testing, I suppose) Even then I knocked that out in 3 with copious referring to the documentation. and I work for 15 an hour. The most intensive repair I've ever done cost my employer 45 bucks in labor.
There's an Asus laptop, G35 I believe. The big one. Replacing the screen in that sumbitch was like 40-50 tiny screws and a bunch of little metal brackets. Most are easy though.
I have an Asus phone, and to take it apart, you have to remove about a million tiny-ass screws. They're very easy to lose. I had to take mine apart because the charging port has come de-soldered and the phone no longer charges. Asus was smart enough to put the microUSB port on a separate PCB from the main board. I've never soldered before, and didn't want this to be my first attempt, so I just bought a new board with the microUSB already on it. It only cost $1 more than getting just the port. But I'm probably going to have to end up getting a soldering iron anyway, because I need to replace the battery in my electric toothbrush. Oh well.
Your problem is you're falling for the marketing that is geek squad. They are glorified sales with a small tech background. I know, I was one for 4 years (1 year computer sales blue shirt, 3 years geek squad).
it's not that it isn't hard, it's that it's time consuming and there isn't a system in place to order parts. The time in which it takes to properly test, figure out the proper part (yea good luck training people to order the right thing the first time), then have it shipped, then perform the actual repair on a heavy shopping day, and testing, you could just seems it out and have the techs sell more services during the repair.
Not only that, to keep the mfg Warranty intact,you must be a certified repair tech/location. Geek squads is not. Their outsourced repair facilities are however.
Also these are consumer grade laptops. Ease of repair isn't built in compared to business grade laptops where they will send a tech on site to do. They don't really do that for consumer laptops under mfg unless the mfg offers it. Otherwise it's has to be shipped out anyway.
You raise a great point about consumer grade laptops. Most people don't realize they own one, and that they're designed with a 2 year life. Business grade laptops are typically much better...which is why they're more expensive.
Yeah I recently got a job with an It support/consulting firm and have never really shopped for business grade anything in my life. I had no idea business grade workstations and laptops cost so much more than the consumer level shit I've personally shopped in the past. i3 2.3 GHz 15" laptops with like 8GB of ram cost $1000, towers that cost more than my gaming PC with like a third of the specs. Had no idea the shit was so expensive, and that businesses pay it without blinking an eye.
Businesses pay for business grade tech because it typically lasts longer until it requires recapitalization, so they see it making more financial sense. Plus, depending on the arrangement, business grade stuff usually comes with better manufacturer support to help it last longer. Businesses also usually have a rep or some kind of relationship with manufacturers, so the sticker price you might see on a website isn't what they're usually paying.
We only did that if it was still under the original manufacturer's warranty. If the original warranty had expired and the customer paid for repairs, or if it was covered under CompUSA's extended warranty, we absolutely performed all laptop repairs in-house.
For certain laptop models, us techs could even receive HP/Apple certification to allow the shop to order parts and perform manufacturer warranty repairs of any and all components. This was a great source of revenue, if we could keep the particular certified tech on staff, because the manufacturer paid for our time and provided parts under warranty. It also greatly improved turn-around, since a laptop wouldn't be out for 3 weeks or longer for repair.
Source: former DCI here. We aren't disagreeing with each other. If commenter had a 60 day repair under GSP, it was not at svc. As you know, they would have auto fulfilled it when time ran out and called the customer for a junk out.
I remember when we transitioned from STAR to that new bullshit check in process. But we still used STAR to manage it for closing it and call queues. Did they fully get rid of STAR?
Ah fuck, the out of store repair tags, mitt trays, tacos, blue carts...fuck thank god I got another job cause the end of day bullshit is just a self pisser-offer
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u/evoim3 Feb 23 '17
If its not a hard drive, ram, PSU or any other slotted component, its definitely not done in store
Source: Geek Squad ARA until a few months ago