Micro Center — Attraction in Brentwood

A little over 50 years ago, I ordered a bottle of my then-favorite wine, with my wife at a fine dining restaurant, This experience was strangely mirrored when I bought a new computer from Micro Center last week.

In both cases, my initial expectations were not met.

The first taste of the wine (Louis Jadot Beaujolais Blanc) tasted sour. I sent it back. The game me another bottle; same problem. After three attempts, the server and I agreed that the whole case must be bad and I got something else. No one showed any distress to deal with the returned stock. In a classy restaurant, they prefer you identify a problem with your service, rather than suffer through it. They handled the situation with grace and insured that they could (and did)enjoy my future visits (all trouble-free!).

Fast forward to my computer purchase at Micro Center. After viewing Amazon's big sale offerings, I found a very competitive machine on sale at Micro Center. It was a PowerSpec, the house brand. I took it home, mad the connections and fired it up. The case lights came on, the fans whirled, the monitor flashed briefly and went blank. The screen stayed blank for over an hour. After that, I managed to get it to slowly boot, but I could only get 640 x 480 resolution. Mildly annoying, but when I took it back to the store, there was no trouble in swapping it out for another unit.

Except this guy booted up slower than an Apple II loading from a cassette drive. I fiddled with this, as I did with the first one, but got no joy. I used to sell computers and I've built some before, so I knew this was getting pretty hopeless. So I went back to Micro Center and explained the situation. We agreed to try one more machine, but the service department would check it out, with me watching, before it left the store. This time, it ran great from the git-go and is still behaving consistently well.

My hat's off to Lance Gerst, Brett R., and the rest of the staff who gracefully turned this situation around. I was impressed by their professional approach. They were clearly not just appeasing an unhappy customer; they clearly demonstrated pride in their product and a desire to make sure we arrived at a solution that would actually be effective. I offered to keep the second machine, if they wanted to bench check it, but no, they felt the situation called tor a clean-cut solution with a new unit. They kept me in the loop on everything as it developed. This isn't the first computer I've bought here. It won't...

Really terrible customer service at their repair center. I took a hard drive in for data recovery- was told it would take 3-4 days. After more than a week I called to check the status and was told I was still in the queue and they hadn’t even STARTED the recovery yet. A few more days pass, without updates despite them promising me updates-I call again- still in the queue. This is a work drive and I have deadlines approaching, so I ask if I can take the drive home to try to pull anything off of it I can at home while still in the queue- and they can call me to tell me when my turn is up and I’ll bring it back (I live very close). I’m told they will need manager clearance, which I wait on and eventually they say a manager has cleared this and I can pick up my drive. I go in the next day to get it and no one in the store has any record of the manager clearing this. I’m told if I take the drive I will lose my place in the queue. I show them the messages from their employees stating the manager has cleared me taking the drive and NOT losing my place. They then go to find my drive and CANT FIND IT and I have to sit around for 20 minutes or so while they try to locate my misplaced drive. They finally find it and make me sign a waiver about taking it. I ask them to clarify again that I will NOT lose my place in the queue and they will call me when it’s my turn. They promise that they will. It’s been several more weeks and I have never gotten a call, so I can only conclude that they removed me from the queue despite promises and manager clearance that that would not happen. The repair job that I was originally told would take 3-4 days would at this point be well over a MONTH without resolution . I took it somewhere else and got good service (I recommend MacHQ if you are a Mac user). Oh, microcenter was also going to charge me $500 where MacHQ’s price was $200. DO NOT use Microcenter’s service department. ABYSMAL communication, completely inaccurate promised turn around times, disorganized, and unreliable. I’ll never...

My husband and I spent over a couple hours in this store like always. He spent most of his time staring at a 3D printer and a race car game setup. When he decided to get the race car kit Jaden was the only young man who offered his services between the two departments. There was only an opened one. So, my husband asked Jaden to help him get the 3D printer instead. Unfortunately, the guy in that department, who passed up my husband numerous times prior when he was in that department for at least 40+ minutes got the commission. Apparently Jaden isn’t allowed to put his commission sticker on the box because it “wasn’t his department.” I spoke with the manager and voiced my opinions and frustration. However, I completely forgot to mention that the guy never once offered help to my husband when he was in that guy’s department. Therefore, he shouldn’t receive the commission because he didn’t do anything other than lift the box to put it in our cart, which Jaden was fully capable of doing. I am thoroughly disappointed in this commission system to the point that I am considering returning this purchase. Jaden should have received full commission. He worked with us. If the other guy wanted the commission, he should have offered his assistance from the beginning of my husband being in his department for so freaking long without assistance. I realize you all are trying to make it a fair system, but life isn’t fair and the people who put the work in should be the ones rewarded. All this system did was give Jaden the unfair treatment for his efforts assisting his customers that he offered to help and the other guy was rewarded for lifting and carrying a box from his department to our cart even though he never once offered to assist my husband until there was a...