I have worked for Geek Squad for over 6 months and I have been a computer technician for over 7 years. I thought the interview would be easy since I am a certified technician and from what they advertise they are the best of the best of computer repair.instead, the interview was honed in on my sales experience. They did not seem to care much about my computer knowledge and stated that most of their employees didn't even hold a A certification (A is a very basic computer certification, you can't be hired for just about any IT job without one).
Training was computer based and after the usual safety training and the like it shifted into selling strategies. We learned how to label every customer based on 5 groups from "Empty Nesters" to "Middle America".in each group they broke it down into gender giving the gender a name based on which group their in. Jill would be the "Middle America" woman who managed the finances of the family and so on.
We were trained to use social engineering to probe prospective buyers, to be able to classify them into a "customer segment" and to deploy selling tactics which were predetermined to their group. This whole time we had meetings every morning which I can only describe as brainwashing in which the store management would pound into our heads the company values and how our manipulation of customers was for the good of everyone. Because after all, the customer has all these "unknown needs" meaning we need to try to sell them all the accessories and add ons we can. Examples would be us suggesting buying the $200 6 ft. Cable because they NEED it when they don't really need the cable at all or it can be bought somewhere else for $10.
Suggesting evidence is that the retailer barely makes any profit on the electronics they sell such as computers because the price is predetermined by the manufacturer. The store makes its money on accessories and services such as Geek Squad which is about trying to fix computers, right?
Well no, not really. Technicians aren't allowed to do any sort of actual repair themselves. We have this CD which contains the only tools we are allowed to use. Just about everything on this CD is programs and fixes which anyone can do themselves at home (and even for free). They have mastered the art of automation to a point where many $199 computer repairs and new computer installs are done with one click and if the computer can't "fix itself" we will suggest a new computer or say it can't be fixed.
Most of the computer work is outsourced to India. How? We have a area where we hook up computers and install this remote desktop software. We let it sit and one of the many hundreds of overseas computer technicians that Best Buy contracts through a company "repairs" your PC with no supervision of us at all. This means any data that is on your computer can be taken by a anonymous person overseas without any knowledge of Geek Squad which from my personal inspection, has happened before at least to one customer.
Added to the data security, when we do a backup it is placed on a computer in back that is unsecured and we keep your data until we can get around to deleting it which may be years later. I can only imagine how simple it would be for someone to burn of a few dvds of customers financial information and take it home.
Any sort of hardware repair (the actual computer) gets shipped to a place in Minnesota. We can't do any sort of repair to hardware ourselves other than power supplies, RAM, and very rarely hard drives. This makes us, the people the customers trust, not able to guarantee anything relating to their computer when it gets shipped off because we can't oversee their computer getting fixed correctly. This makes the repair process take at least 3 weeks and in some cases, months when I know that if I was allowed to do the repair, would take 30 minutes in most cases.
All in all, Geek Squad isn't about fixing much of anything. Our job is to move product at Best Buy, even at customer cost.
Rockerrock
Frankfort, Indiana
U.S.A.
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