The problem is that everyone screams about wanting great customer service but no one is really willing to pay for it. What everyone wants is great customer service and a knowledgable staff in a place that offers products for the same price you can buy them on line. Unfortunately, that is impossible. It costs money to hire people who have a lot of knowledge about technology products, especially ones that are happy to work a retail floor and be abused. You can't get these guys for minimum wage. It also costs money to operate a 25,000 square foot store, to ship inventory into those stores, to hold enough inventory in the store so that customers can have a reasonable expectation that it will be there, to take returns of opened product that the manufacturer won't take back, to pay for insurance and advertising and all of the thousand other things that go into a running a store. On line businesses don't have those expenses. Margins in the electronics business are very thin for retailers.

Because they have much lower costs (and much lower expectations of service) on line retailers can price something for less and still make some money. To make the same a retailer has to price it higher. A retailer that hires expensive people has to charge even more, and is thus not price competitive with either the on line businesses or with the retailer who staffs with the uneducated polo clad herd.

What happens is that all of the people who are crying about an uneducated sales staff happily go to the store that has paid for knowledgeable people who can demo the product and then equally happily leave the store to buy the product from an on line retailer or the cheaper store, depending on how quickly they need it.

If you're whining about the lack of a knowledgable sales staff please make sure you're willing to pay for the service.

Just for reference, I've worked for Best Buy, CompUSA and Egghead (a company that paid for an educated sales staff, and also paid for the folly by having to close their stores and eventually their company). I've also sold products to pretty much every major US retailer that sells electronics.

Midknight

dkaleita

whwhwhwha

BUT Yesterday, they were oddly friendly and not rude like other times.

WebbyBabe

beatngu

WebbyBabe

bobman1235

erockO

Yes, they try and sell the warranties. Honestly, we've got managers breathing down our necks to sell them, I only pushed them on things that made sense... DVD Burners (for some reason they die often with me...), laptops, PDAs and cameras... Stuff that you see broken. A LOT. I used to work at the Brick, NJ store (one of which is closing) and most of the people there are fairly knowledgable and very very helpful. Just don't treat them like the trained chimps in red shirts most people do.

I was as helpful as I could possibly be (lots of customers wrote letters to the corperate office praising me) but the second you turned into a belligerent asshole like most of you are sounding like on here... "Well, fuck you too sir. Go across the street to the dipshits in blue shirts. I hear they'll lick your shit for a dollar. Have fun." Two days later they'd come back, nicer, and ask me for the same thing they tried to previously, and they were helped as best as I could.

Not everyone who works there is a computer genius. Honestly, people who are genuinely enthusiastic about technology aren't cashiers or front desk workers. They're on the sales floor talking about what they like. Go into the store, listen to the sales people as they deal with customers and wait for the one that seems good to you. If the little trollish guy who ISN'T dealing with a customer comes up to you... don't go with him. You wouldn't buy a car from a shady car dealer, don't to the same at one of these places and you won't have the horror stories you DO have.

Nuff said.

ajfili

One more thing, I used to work there, i am one of those people you are shitting on. It is really great to know that people are ungreatful and they don't care about you. I am so proud of all of you. Its ok, dont apologize, i will just say you're welcome for the service you received from me, because i don't care if you are happy or not now and i won't be there on the sales floor anymore, thank you.

isellmanymacs

Chris Marsh said
dear martinh,

so. the "laser" (lens) chewed up your discs, huh? and you thought you heard something weird?
so the part that destroyed your porn was the cable, housing, (carrier?), and associated bits>

Well Chris, you tell me; about a week after I had it, the drive made what I can only describe as a scraping sound, and failed in the middle of a disk write. I removed the disk, and there was a circular scratch, about 3mm wide on the media side of the disk, right at the edge of the portion of the disk that was burned. I tried it again, and it made the same sound almost as soon as I put the disk in. This time the scratch was on the inside edge of the burnable area.

My assumption is that the laser carrier assembly failed in some way, leading the lens or some other part of the carrier mechanism to touch the disk surface. This is based on the fact that the first time the scratch occurred it was at the edge of the area that was just being burned, the second time at the inside of the disk, presumably because the laser assembly homed there.

If you have a better idea of what happened, please let me know. Had I been at home I probably would have been interrupted in burning some fine porn, but I was actually at work at the time.

(and the "youth" was mean to you.)

No Chris , mean people are a fact of life, and sometimes fun if you like a good shouting match. The youth was not "mean", he tried to rip me off, which is something far more serious, first by denying that the unit was under warranty, then denying that CompUSA was the warrentor. The thing was $90, it worked for a week. Comp Usa are supposed to replace it if it fails within 90 days. They refused. Do you see a problem with that?

(just a shot in the dark here- but maybe it's because you're entirely full of shit?)

well I was when I wrote the first post, but a good half hour session in the bathroom has cured that......

martinh

MajorHavoc

Sasquatch

wow- you're an ass.

so. the "laser" (lens) chewed up your discs, huh? and you thought you heard something weird?

so the part that destroyed your porn was the cable, housing, (carrier?), and associated bits.

and the "youth" was mean to you.

just a shot in the dark here- but maybe it's because you're entirely full of shit? none of your story even remotely makes sense.

and as far as you getting hit by a car, well- we can only hope. :)

love,

CHRIS!

cmarsh

isnt' the laser supposed to contact the disc?

you mean the lens.

Wow, are you a CompUsa counter person? I can just hear it now. "we're refusing your warranty claim sir because you said the laser was contacting the disk, and our investigation revealed that, in fact it was the LENS of the laser that was contacting."

I can only assume that if I complained someone form CUSA hit me with a car you'd post a correction that it was the "fender and front hood" not the car that struck me?

martinh

"isnt' the laser supposed to contact the disc?
you mean the lens.

I think most people with a normal sense of proportion would assume that "Laser"
covers lens, carrier, cable, housing, and all the other associated bits. Your answer seems rather like insisting tale of injury is somehow not creditable because the unfortunate victim stated he was struck by a "car" instead of "by the front hood of a car"

If the employee was an simply an idiot, then I must question the viability of an organization that would both hire him, and allow him to deal with the public in that manner. However I find it hard to believe that anyone who is getting a basic hourly wage would go to that much trouble to attempt to refuse a valid warranty return unless it resulted from some directive from higher up to reduce the number or costs of returns. If this was official policy then yes, as you say "close the (sic) all down"

martinh

I used to set up networks at people's houses (back when home networks were big and scary and people would hire 14 year olds because all the 15+ kids were involved in that .com bubble). I once had to spend a full 30 minutes explaining to a client that, despite what the guy at CompUSA said, a 4-port USB hub would not allow him to share his Internet connection all over his house.

When I came out there later, he said that CompUSA had refused his return unless he'd paid a 15% restocking fee, even though the box on the $40 USB hub hadn't even been opened. I'm not surprised the chain is collapsing.

@cmarsh: When one person has a bad experience at a store, it's a fluke. When it becomes corporate policy to treat your customers like idiots and lie to them in the interest of selling extended warranties, they deserve to be shut down.

If any of those employees were worth their salt they'd walk across town and get a job at any number of other electronics retailers. My guess is that the only reason they work at CompUSA is because they COULDN'T get hired anyplace else.

Brad

you mean the lens.

so you had a bad experience at a store.

you're right- the should close them all down.

cmarsh

I bought an external DVD burner from them last year. It came with a 90 day warranty. The warranty card said that all warranty repairs or replacements were to be carried out by CompUsa. After about a week, it started to do weird things. It appeared (and sounded) as if the laser was actually contacting the disk as it spun.
I took it back, with the box, the receipt and the warranty card. I carefully explained to the youth behind the counter that {1} the drive was in 90 day warranty (and showed the receipt and the warranty card) and {2} That it was physically chewing up disks (I even showed him one). The rest of the conversation went like this:

CUSA: I'm sorry, we can't replace this, you didn't buy an extended warranty.

ME: it has a 90 day factory warranty and was purchased 2 weeks ago. I showed you the receipt and the warranty card. (at this point the youth look annoyed and scans the warranty card an receipt as if seeing them for the first time)

CUSA: This drive was made by [manufacturers name], you need to take it to them for service

ME: NO, it's one of your OEM's the warranty card says I take it to CompUsa , and you repair or replace it at your discretion. As it's two weeks old, I'd like it replaced. (youth stares at warranty card again as if a snake has just materialized in his hand)

CUSA: I cant replace it, you need to send it to the manufacturer.

ME: GET ME YOUR *&^%@! MANAGER

The youth walks off and ten minutes later returns (without a manager):
CUSA: She says I can't give you your money back

ME: I didn't ask for my money back!!! Have you listened to a word I said? I want it replaced.

(the youth goes to consult with the manager again)

CUSA: She says that I can replace it.

ME: good

CUSA: (in a tone rather like he just discovered dog poop on his shoe) "you will have to go back there and get me another one"

Now I must confess to not having the best temper in situations like this, and there was something about his tone that really got me mad.

ME: The warranty card says that COMPUSA will replace the drive. Now Mo*fu**, which of us is wearing a little badge that says CompUsa?

I assume I looked psychopathic enough by this time that the kid actually went and got a replacement drive. Despite the fact that I had returned the whole package, with power cord, usb cable and documentation, he insists on unpacking the new drive and switching out only the drive itself. In doing so he (accidentally??) puts both USB cable in one box (not the one that I took home).

I really hope if he's still working there that his is the first job to go

martinh

Of course, I really would like a date with Carmen Electra too.

CBMTTek

professorjonathan

you people are useless.

cmarsh

Check it out here:
http://www.compusa.com/locations/store.asp
and
http://consumerist.com/consumer/how-to/how-to-know-if-your...

matrixhax0r

Their POS software is some homebrew nightmare that (at least when I was working there) wouldn't even run on a Pentium class machine. The in-store terminals are mostly 486s. The business philosophy at Fry's is that every human being that walks through the door is there for one purpose only, to steal Fry's blind, and the employees are even more suspect than the customers.

Don't get me wrong, I shop at Fry's now and again. But after being a supervisor there, I know their business model is so flimsy that they still haven't fully integrated the Incredible Universe stores that they bought years ago. If they tried to buy all those CompUSA locations... well, there'd be an implosion in San Jose that would likely wipe out half of Silicon Valley.

infmom

huygir

From the look of that map there were many high rent areas where they must have been trying to keep up with Starbuck's. I know I have at least two within a 15 minute radius, probably a couple more I don't know about.

huygir

gizmofo

I haven't bought anything at CompUS(eless)A for ages. The one way to be sure that something is out of stock? See it in the sunday ad.

I like the concept of CompUSA, and I really like having a computer superstore available locally, unfortunately, there was too much emphasis on $$$ and not enough on keeping the customers happy. Hopefully, they will regroup, focus on the customer needs more, and start being competitive with the on-line retailers.

CBMTTek