I've never gotten good help there for an Apple product, but then again I rarely need their help. I'm usually just checking out which products they sell for what prices, or showing them to someone else.
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Genius Bars and Expanded Apple Lineup Coming to Best Buy Stores?
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there are problems with this topic and with these responses.
a. bestbuy wont put a genius bar in their stores because they are invested in geek squad. no way apple will share service dollars of the genius bar / its a complete conflict of interest to the nonbiased sales of CE that is the basis of bestbuy
b. i happen to work at bestbuy and have been an apple certified sales professional. dont call all of us idiots or lacking customer service, yes there are associates like that out there, but if you dont like it try a different bestbuy or go to an apple store. if you dont let management know their associates are poor quality they cant change it.
side note.. if you know more about a product than the person selling it (or think you do) why even ask questions?
a. bestbuy wont put a genius bar in their stores because they are invested in geek squad. no way apple will share service dollars of the genius bar / its a complete conflict of interest to the nonbiased sales of CE that is the basis of bestbuy
b. i happen to work at bestbuy and have been an apple certified sales professional. dont call all of us idiots or lacking customer service, yes there are associates like that out there, but if you dont like it try a different bestbuy or go to an apple store. if you dont let management know their associates are poor quality they cant change it.
side note.. if you know more about a product than the person selling it (or think you do) why even ask questions?
Sorry, I've had ******* customer service in at least 4 different Best Buys in two different states including one that treated me like an idiot and lied and expected me to believe them. Don't lie to me and make it blatantly obvious you think I'm stupid enough to believe it. They claimed that they had no manager on duty at the moment, I work at a large retail, they don't operate without a manager somewhere. I called them out on it, a manager magically appeared. They also claimed that the extended warranty on the panasonic VCR was panasonic's warranty ... BS, panasonic's only warranty is the original warranty on the VCR. That particular instance was the only time I ended up so frustrated I ended up cursing out the employees (and that was the incident BTW that had me swear I was never giving Best Buy another dime of my money as I really don't appreciate being lied to and having my intelligence insulted with what they expected me to believe). And I really do try to be nice as I work retail myself.
And I've never really had any *good* service (waited so long for them to get me a TV off the shelf, I already knew what I wanted, I ended up leaving and buying a better and more expensive one at Circuit City who had employees willing to come help me, waited a long time to get a video recorder that was on deal cause it was missing a part while we watched the guy who was supposed to be getting the extra parts that came with it chat with his friends, asked a guy to help me after he was done with current customer, waited patiently for him to be done and tried to stay out of the way, only to have him go ask some one else if they needed help). So yeah, it kinda colors my view of most customer service in Best Buy (I'm sure there are some good ones but in my experience, that's not the rule).
And? If you know what you're buying, why does it matter how much floor space is devoted to displaying them? I agree that some BestBuy stores have poor Apple display environments, but if you know you want a MacBook, that doesn't matter in the slightest.
Well, that's a fair point. I feel the same way about FutureShop (which is actually the same store, for all intents and purposes). Sadly, I've been to FS a few times since when I can't find stock elsewhere, but I avoid that place like the plaque.
I was more responding to the idea that you "have to" buy your Apple products from an Apple Store, though. Sometimes going to your local authorized reseller is a lot more convenient than driving 3 hours one-way (in my case) just to go an Apple Store. If you know what you want to buy, it doesn't matter what store you go to, the products are the same.
I don't consider untrained salespeople to be idiots, just untrained. I'm glad to hear that some of Best Buy's staff is Apple-certifed but I'm not willing to go store hopping trying to find them. The chance to try a product hands-on and the possibility of assistance is what brings some into the store rather than to bestbuy.com and I'm disappointed when people don't get their questions answered. I've often answered the questions of other shoppers because I happened to know something.
Sometimes there are answers they might know. For example, when Apple offered a choice of glossy and matte laptops but my local Best Buy had only glossy on display, I asked if they carried the matte version as well. But the sales associate didn't know they sold two versions. I admit that I asked whichever employee happened to be near the Mac display; perhaps I should have asked if they had Apple specialists there. Could we get them black T-shirts?
I hope not.
As a former/recent Best Buy employee, I can wholeheartedly agree with all of you. Not a day went by when I didn't find myself silently raging in my head when my ignorant, misinformed coworkers (and even supervisors) filled customer's heads with misinformation and completely false answers. They treated customers like ignorant children and, to put it bluntly, they were all full of !@#$%. Like the time my supervisor told a customer that the Core i3 is a quad-core CPU (not understanding the concept of hyperthreading). Or the other time when a customer bought a MacBook Air but wanted more hard drive space than 128 GB, and so the moron working the Apple table sold him a 500 GB Scorpio 2.5" laptop drive along with the Air so the customer could upgrade it himself when he got home. The guy looked at me like I was nuts when I told him the Air uses a mini-PCIe blade SSD which is incompatible with the WD drive both interface-wise (SATA =/= mini PCIe) and physical size (THERE'S NO F!@#$%ING ROOM IN THE COMPUTER FOR THAT DRIVE.) Never mind the fact that the customer probably irreparably damaged his MBA just trying to open it up!
God, it was terrible.
Yes, and that's all anyone needs to know.
I see nothing on this mac-pro.com website that mentions that they are Apple Authorized so it is possible that Apple isn't letting them do anything. Perhaps Apple doesn't even know about them.
THat said, perhaps you should consider letting Apple know about this site. If they are actually authorized there is nothing like some shady games to get that taken away. And Apple might be willing to hook you up with valid numbers as a reward for helping to expose such tricksters. Also, file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, the state's department of consumer affairs, put it on yelp and wherever else these guys might be listed. Make some noise and perhaps they will realize they 'accidentally sent you the wrong codes'
Ok, did the coworker actually think that would work or was he just trying to make a sale?
Cause if the former... wow, I can't believe it didn't occur to either of them (co-worker or customer) that if the hard drive is thicker than the computer, it probably isn't going to fit *in* the computer.
Heh, reminds me of being in Fry's and my roommate overheard some sales guy convincing some customer that she should buy a new hard drive because her computer was having a hard time with you tube... lolwhat?!
Lots of jobs are that way. I'm in accounting and have to audit what some other people do. IMO their job is twice the headache for half the pay.
/signed
Though I am amused at the prospects. Imagine ... a cross between an Apple genius and Geek Squad staffer. Hmm ... unbuttoned white shirt, tie (unfinished knot, of course), torn over-sized jeans, apple boxers (showing of course), sandals, rasta dreadlocks, clutching an iPhone in one hand, and the other constantly pulling up said jeans.
nope. the boys that wear their undies showing never pull them up, that's part of the 'style'
other than that, you are probably on the money
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Your seriously going to call apples keyboard with good quality short throw keys a "kiddie" keyboard against that monster the old style chunky keys.
Hey given your promotion of hemp a material that is strong, durable and requires no ground carbon. Does it worry you that your promoting a product that must contain enough plastic and other poorly recyclable materials to make what 8+ the of apple full size keyboards?
Yes I prefer the apple keyboard it suits how I work. Each to there own I guess.
Both. Like I said, he wouldn't believe me when I tried to tell him later. Sadly enough, I *almost* don't blame him though...Best Buy employees are under TREMENDOUS pressure to sell sell sell, and those sales quotas are EVERYTHING to management. Best Buy couldn't care less if you're helpful or knowledgeable about the products themselves, they just want you to sell as much as possible so they stay rich. And God help you if your quotas fall behind. This is what ended up happening to me...business was very slow due to people waiting for Black Friday to do their shopping, and the customers that did come in were all "just looking" and didn't buy anything. And guess who got blamed for it? That's right, me.
I "clearly had no motive to succeed with Best Buy", according to the managers. My schedule went from ~30 hours per week to ZERO. Gotta love greedy corporations and their fascist ways.
I wish they would cut ties with Worst Buy completely.
You forgot to put "Geniuses" in quotations. These kids don't even know how to solder.
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Genius would beat low-tech Geeks
I didn't think Best Buy was having so many problems until they made #4 on 2010's Wall St. "Most hated companies in America list."
"According to Consumer Report's December 2010 electronic store ratings, Best Buy ranked as the third-worst bricks and mortar store, and bestbuy.com was designated as the worst online store."
http://www.wealthvest.com/blog/sean-browne/the-top-15-most-hated-companies-by-americans-in-2010/
I didn't think Best Buy was having so many problems until they made #4 on 2010's Wall St. "Most hated companies in America list."
"According to Consumer Report's December 2010 electronic store ratings, Best Buy ranked as the third-worst bricks and mortar store, and bestbuy.com was designated as the worst online store."
http://www.wealthvest.com/blog/sean-browne/the-top-15-most-hated-companies-by-americans-in-2010/
And people who shop at Apple stores aren't idiots? I worked in one for nearly three years. Half of the people who come in didn't know the difference between .Mac and Applecare. We had the same people come in over and over for training who were taught the same thing every single time they came in because the can't grasp the concept of a mouse.
Both. Like I said, he wouldn't believe me when I tried to tell him later. Sadly enough, I *almost* don't blame him though...Best Buy employees are under TREMENDOUS pressure to sell sell sell, and those sales quotas are EVERYTHING to management. Best Buy couldn't care less if you're helpful or knowledgeable about the products themselves, they just want you to sell as much as possible so they stay rich. And God help you if your quotas fall behind. This is what ended up happening to me...business was very slow due to people waiting for Black Friday to do their shopping, and the customers that did come in were all "just looking" and didn't buy anything. And guess who got blamed for it? That's right, me.
Gotta love greedy corporations and their fascist ways.
Yeah, I've heard that (especially about selling those extended warranties) and honestly, I totally believe it too (Borders also I get the impression from hearing employees and just being in there has a pretty similar attitude towards their employees).
And honestly, I'm glad I work at a store that cares about customer service. We don't tend to have to deal with a lot of frustrated customers because they do want us to try to make them happy. Happier customers are much nicer to deal with. Rather than frustrated customers that are only there cause you offered a good price and are putting up with the frustrating service for the good price. Honestly, yeah, it can be frustrating to work at a place where "The customer is always right". But I think I'd rather that than "just get the money out of the customer wherever you can." Cause I bet a place like that gets a lot more customer suckage (and more frustrating is that if you care about helping people you might even agree with them but can't do anything about it).
(We have a manager at my store though that I think would fit right in with the Best Buy philosophy. He's very short sighted about trying not to lose any money to the customer vs. making the customer feel like we care even if we don't always get the money from them. My store believes in trying to retain long time regulars. Of course with an electronics store, that may not be as important as they are selling a lot of impulse buys and stuff that people aren't always needing so they probably don't get many regulars that spend a lot over time vs needing to get the money now out of the customer. We sell stuff like groceries where people will need to get more eventually).
Best Buy's gotten worse since Circuit City went down. That's why I kept telling people that CC's death can only be a bad thing - their presence kept "MSRP Buy" in at least a little bit of check as BB was willing to spend money to try and be superior. Now, they're happy just being adequate as the alternatives aren't plenty.