Home Page for Daniel Spisak-> Fry's Electronics->Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:51:54 PST

From jhoover@mminternet.com Tue Jan 27 17:52:23 1998
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 17:51:54 -0800
From: John Hoover <jhoover@mminternet.com>
Reply-To: jhoover@mminternet.com
Organization: MMInternet
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.04 (Win95; I)
To: dspisak@mminternet.com
Subject: I sold out! I'm contributing to your page!

Dan, just had to add my two cents to your growing 'looming legal
disater' known as the Fry's page.

I have had my fair share of Fry's woes, and yes, I totally agree with
you. A salesman should make the effort to know his or her product, and
not simply BS their way through a sale. When I wanted to buy memory
stackers (beign able to plug two simms into one slot) I was skeptical it
would work, but went ahead and bought it, after numerous assurances it
would work. It did NOT. When returning the memory and stackers, the
employee made it known that 8 meg simms didn't seem to stack. Well, it
would have been nice to know ahead of time.

At the very least, when you were uncertain, a Fry's employee should
have referred to any number of sources for that information. If Fry's
has no internet acces, or no parts database, or no othe means of product
knowledge, how can they expect their employees to be able to answer
questions from customers like you and I?

Frankly, I no longer shop at Fry's. I know most of their product is
reconditioned, allowing them to be very competitive in price. Not many
stores sell reconditioned (aka returned) products, they ship them back
to the manufacturer, who then (apparently) ships them off to Fry's. This
isn't Fry's fault that the company might not have fixed the problem,
they're well aware of this potential (which is why their return counter
process is flawless, the only good thing I can say about Fry's), but
don't let the customers know. I was unaware of this until I had returned
a Sound Blaster card three times (each time I was exchanging a defective
model for ANOTHER defective model).

A good friend of mine worked at Fry's, and I would like to say he was
an extremely intelligent man WHO COULD SPELL. I don't want the
stereotype that Fry's employees are not able to spell to continue.

As it stands, Fry's has a good chunk of the computer retail market
locked. They offer great prices on (usually) reliable product. But for a
customer unsure of what they need, or want, I cannot even begin to
recommend Fry's. Customer service is my main concern, and Fry's is only
a possible choice when I know exactly what I want. If I don't, I'll go
to CompUSA. I've had CompUSA employees tell me they didn't know the
answer, and then found someone who did. That's a LOT better than simply
pushing product out the door, and wondering why a good percent of it
comes back, but the customers don't.

John

Last updated: 1998/2/4 15:39:15 GMT