If Best Buy bankrupt what becomes of Geek Squad?

Geek Squad is too valuable to let it die. Best Buy paid good money for it, and I would assume they would sell it off as an asset. Maybe Microsoft or Dell would buy it, since they are getting into the consumer repair business.
 
altrenda said:
Geek Squad is too valuable to let it die. Best Buy paid good money for it, and I would assume they would sell it off as an asset. Maybe Microsoft or Dell would buy it, since they are getting into the consumer repair business.
Click to expand...

Yeah from my understanding, GS is pretty much pure profit.
 
GeekSquad will keep going, someone else will pick them up and keep the ball rolling. I just passed another little Geek Squad Beetle on the highway the other day. Laughed my arse off at the geek inside that thing...wanted to run over that little car with my new RAM truck.
 
Honestly, I think Best Buy would sell off all of their store fronts before they sold off Geek Squad. Sorry to say, but they aren't going anywhere any time soon. :(
 
I've always wanted to advertise my business as the "Better Buy" but that's too close to infringement for my tastes without having a lawyer look it over.
 
I don't see geek squad surviving if they aren't in a best buy with huge foot traffic everyday.. Half their business comes from loading crapware on new computers that are sold in best buy, and then pressuring people into getting extended warranties through them.

I was looking at buying an asus laptop for 350 at best buy, and they told me I HAD to get the 99$ geek squad package on it.. I wasn't allowed to buy the laptop without paying geek squad. So I got a toshiba instead... What really ****** me off is two days later I went in and they had an open box one for 299 with no GS package..

@papuchazo - We get plenty of customers who GS screws over, but we're positioned pretty well between SEO and reviews to get most of their clients if they closed down. So we're hoping they close, and them staying open isn't a blessing to anyone, especially the customer.
 
jboulton98 said:
Maybe "Even Better Buy" or "Better Than Best Buy"? "Better Buy" almost makes it seem like you're a step below Best Buy.
Good < Better < Best
;)
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I was thinking of the car rental motto "We try harder". "We're better than the best" sort of thinking, but would that translate or would people think like you said that I was "not best"
 
compnet said:
I was looking at buying an asus laptop for 350 at best buy, and they told me I HAD to get the 99$ geek squad package on it.. I wasn't allowed to buy the laptop without paying geek squad. So I got a toshiba instead... What really ****** me off is two days later I went in and they had an open box one for 299 with no GS package..
Click to expand...

Too funny... I don't know that GS is an asset. Perhaps the first syllable applies.

I had purchased a laptop from the Best Buy website and had it shipped to the store for pickup. A Geeksquad kid brought out the laptop and handed me a bill for $120 for their "optimization" service that I had never asked for. I refused to pay and he got a little upset, but I silenced his protest with a printout of my online shopping cart & invoice that I'd thankfully had the foresight to print. They didn't have another unmolested laptop of the same model in stock, so rather than simply waiving the fee they made me stand around for almost an hour while they restored the factory image in the back room... and for my trouble, they didn't even send me off with the restore DVDs.

It all ended well, though. I thanked him with a smile and walked 5 feet to the adjacent customer service desk. In plain sight and within earshot of him, I shared the story of my experience with a manager who had been watching me loiter for quite some time. Scored a $25 gift card.

There is a business lesson to be learned in this. Geeksquad could have just apologized for the mistake and eaten the cost of labor their 'optimization' entails and 4 DVD-R discs. Instead, they chose to add $25 and the time taken to undo their 'optimization'... but by god it was worth it, they got to keep a nice shiny set of restore discs for an out of stock laptop. ( :
 
compnet said:
I don't see geek squad surviving if they aren't in a best buy with huge foot traffic everyday.. Half their business comes from loading crapware on new computers that are sold in best buy, and then pressuring people into getting extended warranties through them.

I was looking at buying an asus laptop for 350 at best buy, and they told me I HAD to get the 99$ geek squad package on it.. I wasn't allowed to buy the laptop without paying geek squad. So I got a toshiba instead... What really ****** me off is two days later I went in and they had an open box one for 299 with no GS package..
Click to expand...

I always order laptops on bestbuy.com and select the in store pickup. Walk into the store and head to the service desk. Show them my order and I'm out the door. Never had any issues with pushy salespeople.
 
I am guessing that each store manager pushes that crap for extra sales.

They didn't have another unmolested laptop of the same model in stock

LOL!

It's not good here in Minnesota. I put out a FB blast about the stores closing and how this was good for small business, and I got blasted on Twitter about how insensitive I am to so many locals losing jobs and their homes. My business should do better...but no one cares about me getting more work (I have 2 stores in 3+ of the store areas they are closing). I was TOLD to open a store in one poor town that helped build a BB! They have nothing now local. (hmmm, thinking hat on of course).

I feel for those who are losing jobs. I've been laid off, I know the pain.
 
As far as I'm concerned, GS staying in business is an asset for us. They lay off all their people, the market floods with rent-a-techs at 20% the prices we charge across the country. Also, we'd lose our "bad guy". I think we've all referred to GS in a bad light before about their prices, related horror stories of their repair jobs (and prices), or had client telling us about their horrible repair jobs (and prices lol).

While they take some business form us, their reputation proceeds them and especially the bad side. More people will complain to their friends and family faster than they ever will give a lead for a potential client. The fact that they're nationwide makes it even better. Everyone knows Best Buy, everyone knows Geek Squad. If Aunt Martha in Wisconsin had a bad experience with them and tells their daughter in California, the daughter gets a bad impression of their local GS and tells the people they know about their aunt's bad experience and it just keeps going on and on. So, I hope they do stay in business, personally. lol
 
While I have actually met and worked with a real life former Geek Squad'r who was an incredibly good tech, I can't see a lot of former GS techs actually being able to do much of anything in their own without the assembly line they're used to working on.
 
trendless said:
While I have actually met and worked with a real life former Geek Squad'r who was an incredibly good tech, I can't see a lot of former GS techs actually being able to do much of anything in their own without the assembly line they're used to working on.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I'm sure there are exceptions to every rule, which is why I generally shy away from sweeping generalizations. That said, I want to share my story of the only GS tech I've personally known.

I used to work for a corporate IT department with a guy who went on to join GS. Before he left, he was winning the monthly company "super tech" contest every month and our peers resented him for it. Not because they were jealous of the video cards and peripherals he was winning as prizes, but because he rarely fixed anything. His work days consisted of cluttering up the call tracking system with hundreds of vaguely technical sounding nonsense posts and cherry picking cases to arbitrarily close (which gave him awesome looking numbers by the company's metrics).

A close personal friend of mine once brought me a laptop that had been getting very hot and eventually wouldn't POST. I took a look at it and found that the cpu/exhaust fan was not connected, and the motherboard had become damaged as a result. When I told him about this, he cursed as he realized that the overheating began after he had taken the laptop to GS for a $99 tuneup... the same GS that had employed Mr. Super Tech at the time. Not to say he was personally responsible, but it is quite a coincidence.
 
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