The Geek Squad

[squadman]

On the way home this evening I was listening to the Radio 2 evening news and they were interviewing a guy from the Car Phone Warehouse about a NEW idea which he refered to as the Geek Squad. Evidently he was waxing lyrical about a new aquasition that the Car Phone Warehouse was setting up, something to do with Best Buy whatever that maybe. Anyway he was saying that with all the technological goods on the market that having come back from the states he was amazed at the sales staff in US retail outlets who had amazing product knowledge and that they made sure that the consumer got the right product and that this amazing product knowledge followed the customer to there door in the form of highly trained people delievering and setting up any products purchased.
This was the crux of the new Geek Squad coming to a outlet near you soon by all accounts.

He was also talking about DSG’s efforts in the form of their Tech Guys, saying that with all this high tech consumer electronics customers were unable to make sure that had the right stuff and were able to make it all operate as it should, he was babbling about home computers runing wi-fi to TVs, Mobile Phones and household appliances all aimed at the sort of people that buy into this technology.

Well can you imagine how this would work in practice ? not only would the big stores require highly trained technical staff on the inside but they would require the same outside to make this idea work. In essence what he was talking about was not a new idea at all, we all know it as good old fashioned service where sales staff used to know the products because the retailers and manufacturers used to invest it staff training also known as product knowledge.

Looking at how the major sheds operate none of this seems to fit in with their modus operandi where they employ poorly trained ill equiped staff to sell Hi Tech equipment to Joe Public in the majority of cases both the sales staff and the customer is clueless.

The thing is if this revalation has now been discovered by the brains of the Car Phone Warehouse who is obviously paid a lot of money for his grey matter. Could it be that many of us here and that already know that Joe Public is sick of lousy service and poor or non exisistent product knowledge should capatalise on this for our own profit cause whatever they have in mind someone is gonna have to foot the bill for all these highly trained staff and I bet if it ever gets of the ground its gonna be old Joe paying out.

As for the Tech Guys I overheard a conversation in PC World where one of the Tech Guys was advising a customer how he would not be able to get a replacement or refund on a laptop with a manufacturing fault which set the guy back nearly a grand and that he would have to have it repaired cause it was five weeks old ! I am afraid that I had to clue this poor sole up as he was obviously at a disadvantage !

So its a fact that Good Product knowledge linked to personal service both at the point of sale as well as during the installation is key to a happy consumer/reatailer relationship something I am keen to offer my customers everyday. Because most of us here are small businesses we are able to maintain much tighter control over how we sell and deal with our customers and this as I see it is a big advantage over the sheds and a lot of my customers will pay a little more for my personal service levels which they cannot get at the sheds. The Car Phone Man was even saying that Maddona and Mariah Carey have there own Geek Squad on tours.
He seemed to be missing the point that with a live concert there is no room for error and the people who are tasked with running sound, lighting, effects and rigging are Professional Technicians who have years of live touring the world over so yes they are the real Geeks and although it sounded good patter to the people who don;t know how he can compare his Geeks to them is a enigma.

[boselecta]

Re: The Geek Squad

I thought Geek squad had been around for years in the uk! Sheds already offer this service, Comet have ‘Comet on call’, (on road pc techs) and i have seen lots of independents doing this.

[wilf]

Re: The Geek Squad

highly trained in a specialist store to answer all the questions and demonstrate the shiny product on display so that the customer has a full working knowledge when he coughs up his hard earnt in the discount supermarket or some web site!

wilf :rolls:

[Madmac]

Re: The Geek Squad

Thats the problem isnt it Wilf. The public had access to thousands of independent retailers from lands end to John o groats in years gone by.

All i hear from people around here is how they feel constantly let down by the sheds & supermarkets, how its such a shame that there is no indy appliance outfits left in the area, blah, blah..

Well, you have to use it or lose it, dont you :rolls:

[squadman]

Re: The Geek Squad

Exactly, use it or lose it. This is what has happened the sheds came in and damaged the indy trade just like your corner grocer or butcher the supermarkets wiping loads of small businesses out.

This does not mean that all is lost, far from it, lets look at ISE for a minute, many said that it would’nt work even my business colleague had strong reservations that we could sell such a unknown product at the prices. YOu have to be able to think outside the box I could see that ISE was just the very thing for our business as it attaches all of the core things we need as small business whist preventing the sheds from even being able to compete.

I reckon that there is a big market for the kind of service we offer and the sheds cannot match it or come close, they are victims of there own design and the consumers are starting to see theme as just box shifters.

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