Geek Squad vs. Best Buy

The misalignment I have experienced was when I worked at Best Buy’s Geek Squad during its beginning to middle stages. The Geek Squad motto is; “serving the public, policing technology, and protecting the world.” According to the Geek Squad’s motto, it’s primary purpose is to service the customer and provide technology solutions that the customer needs or wants. However, the Best Buy sales associates goal is to upsell a customer on accessories because accessories drive higher margin.

As a computer technician at Geek Squad, I didn’t feel like, nor did I want to be a salesman. However, as the Geek Squad become more assimilated into Best Buy, the one thing that mattered was sales. My manager desired upselling of services or accessories that the customer would not necessarily gain the most benefit from. I was pretty much barred from doing a simple fix for free (something that was common-place in the past to provide a good service). I determined that I could not best serve the customer and serve Best Buy’s thirst for margin at the same time. As a result, the entire talented technical staff (which included me for those of you that are concerned) left the company.

I feel that the direct result of the misalignments between the Geek Squad and Best Buy resulted in a less-talented staff, and a loss of customer loyalty. This not only inhibits Geek Squad from fulfilling its motto, but it also hurts Best Buy’s future ability to sell to trusting customers