The Virginian-Pilot
©
Geeks On Call America Inc., the on-site technology support provider, said Wednesday it has entered a pilot partnership with Sam's Club to offer discounted service to the retailer's members in Maryland and Virginia.
The partnership will launch Saturday in 20 Sam's Club stores. Customers who buy computers and other electronics at the warehouse club will receive Geeks On Call service in their offices or homes for about half the price of regular customer service, said Richard Cole, chief executive of Geeks On Call Holdings Inc., the Norfolk-based parent of the franchise company.
A computer setup, for example, typically costs about $200. Through Sam's Club, it'll be about $98, Cole said.
In exchange, Geeks On Call gains access to new customers, primarily the small- and medium-size businesses that tend to shop at Sam's Club, a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Those are Geeks On Call's core customers as well, Cole said.
Geeks On Call also announced Wednesday its launch of a telephone and Internet tech-support center dubbed Call The Geeks. In areas where the company has no local franchise to provide on-site service, customers can access technical assistance by phone or online, initially for free. The customer then can pay a flat fee for 30 days of unlimited phone, live chat or e-mail support.
Cole said the Sam's Club deal will help bolster the sales of Geeks On Call, which became a publicly traded company in February and has yet to turn a profit. The costs of taking a private entity public put a damper on earnings in the past quarter, he said.
Any retailer selling computers today needs technical support for customers, and that presented an opportunity for Geeks On Call, Cole said. Sam's Club will display Geeks On Call signs throughout its stores.
"Obviously, it'll drive revenue, and obviously, it bodes well for the shareholders," Cole said. "Relationships build value."
Carolyn Shapiro, (757) 446-2270, carolyn.shapiro@pilotonline.com
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
Jobs in Tidewater
Haven't as much as heard a boo from a recruiter in years, well execpt for spam job offers.
Best thing about work overseas is first $85K is tax free.
I know there are IT dudes and dudettes making $85K + in Tidewater, but like I said, I haven't even had as much a offer.
No prob.
Uhmp
First, if you are into UNIX or geek stuff, www.twuug.org, www.hrgeeks.com, irc.757.org #proto . Second, I'm aware of all the free programs, but never need to use them as I don't visit sites of questionable content. I NEVER do email on my windows desktop, I use a text based mail client from the 80s (PINE, via SSH to my NetBSD server.) Text based is at least 4 times more efficient than GUI, unless there are attachments. The majority of my systems are not Windows. Heck, I just got back from the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in NYC over the weekend where we ran a video distribution network. 757labs.com / HRGeeks representing Hampton Roads a block from the Empire State Building. Cool stuff. If you have a CISSP and TS, you should be able to find work locally.
RE: Hard to find geeks
There are more experienced techs than jobs in Tidewater. In the 11 years I've been in the biz I have only held a job in Tidewater for 6 months, the rest of the time as a "Beltway Bandit".
My resume goes directly to the recruiters round file in Tidewater with:
TS Clearance/CISSP/MCSE NT/2K/2K3/A+/N+/AS Degree/Veteran, that got me 6 months in Tidewater.
And people wonder I work overseas so much for six figures...
and when I waked you through
When I walked you through fixing your system, I always had you use free tools like I mentioned in my previous post. Glad I'm no longer with Dell (managers treated me like crap -they wanted me to rush through calls moreso than do a good job)
Geeks on call a RIP OFF
These people charge a high price for doing nothing more than running a software program you can get for free.
Geeks
When the Geeks organization gets so saturated with major companies, on a local scale, the technicians will be so hard-to-find they'll hire anyone who can plug a computer into the wall. They won't know any more than the computer-illiterate consumer who buys their bargains. Guess who gets taken for a ride....us, the consumer. Then find someone who cares. Virginia Beach is trashing the consumer complaint office. Do they care???
This article just proves....
.....they charge too much for their services. $200 to set-up a computer? Like Ethan said, the wires are color coded. What a rip-off.
Bag Mojo
Most viruses/spyware et al come from surfin web sites of questionable content.
You can always reformat and reinstall or turn an old PC into an Ubuntu box.
Plenty of free support forums to help you remove adware/spyware as well.
My t-shirt? "No, I won't help you fix your computer!"
puleeze
Uh? Ever heard of Ad-Aware Personal Edition? How about Spybot Search and Destroy? Windows Defender ring a bell? No? Maybe AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition? ZoneAlarm? It's free too! Have a look at Download.com and filter your search to Freeware. You can also Google it.
- a former Dell tech (no, I wasn't the idiot who charged you $80, I was the poor soul who walked you through fixing it after your credit card was charged)
Cheaper to throw it away
It's kind of crazy, but it's almost cheaper to throw away and buy a new computer CPU than it is to have malware removed. Due to large hard drives and slow access times, removing malware can be a very time consuming process. In the end, there are potential solutions. If you don't mind giving up some functionality, there are free Linux distributions that give you basic web, email, and multimedia capabilities that will be unaffected by malware and viruses. And there are Apple systems, which carry a premium for the name but also so far have mostly been untouched in terms of malware, exploits, viruses and trojans. It's kind of odd to me that society is so now that people will pay $200 to have a box plugged in. The cables are color coded. Knowledge is good, no?