Shortly after double agent Stephen Riser pulled his Volkswagen Beetle up to a Sandy Springs, Ga., office, he began to tackle a list of 10 repair requests.
There was one sluggish mouse (it was dirty), a tempestuous digital camera program (it wasn’t loaded correctly) and a printer that added weird symbols to pages (culprit: competing programs).
It took about an hour for Riser, a member of the newly launched Geek Squad, to fix all the problems on two computers and a printer–not that time was an issue. Geek Squad, owned by national electronics chain Best Buy, charges by the job rather than the hour.
“We’ve gotten to the point in our society where time is more valuable than money,” said Robert Stephens, who founded the Geek Squad 10 years ago while in college.
He approached Best Buy about joining forces in 2000, and the retailer purchased Stephens’ company a year later.
Best Buy spent the next two years hiring and training 6,800 computer technicians to outfit all 636 Best Buy stores across the U.S. and Canada.
“We saw it as a great growth opportunity,” said Sean Skelley, business group leader of service for Best Buy. “People already brought their problems to us. Even though another company’s name was on the product, they bought it at Best Buy, and they expected Best Buy to fix it.”
While researching the idea, Best Buy conducted a survey that revealed that–after family members and pets–the home computer ranked as the third thing people would save in a fire, Skelley said.
This is the first time a national electronics chain has capitalized on the need for tech help by offering services over the phone, in the store (via “counter agents”) or on location (through “double agents”). Before the nationwide Geek Squad launch in August, Best Buy only repaired the computers they sold, and all those were shipped away for repair.
Not that home computer support is a new venture. House calls have been common for the last 10 years. But typically small, local companies have dominated the market.
With this new venture, tech-savvy geeks make house calls
24 hours a day, traveling in black-and-white Volkswagen Beetles, which complement a uniform of black pants, white shirts and a black clip-on tie.
“We wear the clip-on tie for the same reason the police do: so people can’t choke you with it,” Stephens said. “After trying to fix a computer for six hours, people can be pretty tense when you get there.”
Geek fees
Best Buy’s new venture charges from $129 to $229 for on-location repairs during regular business hours. The same services are $29 to $59 if done in the store.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Kris Karnopp (kkarnopp@tribune.com)
