Did you know Best Buy will deal with your warranty issues for you, as long as you bought the computer there and it’s still under manufacturer warranty?
Unfortunately, I only discovered this after already having spent months trying to get Asus to either correctly fix or replace my daughter’s 9-month old laptop.
If I had have known that instead of having to buy computer boxes, spend money shipping it, deal with manufacturer incompetence, I could have just taken it to my local Best Buy and avoided all the hassles, I’d never shop anywhere else for a computer.
But I didn’t know.
In fact many of their associates don’t know this and Best Buy never advertises it as part of their value proposition. It’s not mentioned on their receipts.
It’s not on any in-store advertising. It’s not mentioned anywhere prominently on Bestbuy.com. 
It’s not mentioned anywhere.
And yet they offer it. But I only discovered this after visiting different Best Buy stores as we tried resolving the issue with my daughter’s laptop not working even after Asus supposedly fixed it.
And now after three failed attempts by Asus to fix the laptop, and twice sending a cheaper and wrong-sized replacement laptop, dozens of hours on the phone, I’m still trying to get an adequate replacement six months later.
When I think about the contrast in potential experience, I get furious.
- Best Buy: Stop by on way back from work, walk into store, wait in line a few minutes, talk to a real person face-to-face and come back in a few days. If there is an issue repeat process, if need be escalate with store management in person.
- Asus: Call, get put on hold, talk to someone in the Philippines, get an RMA number, go to FedEx Office, pay for laptop box and shipping, wait, get laptop shipped back, discover it still doesn’t work, call ASus tech support, talk to First level support, get put on hold while waiting to get transferred to second-level support, repeat process multiple times. Then starting in January, ask for replacement laptop, go through entire process all over again, only this time spend an between 30-45 minutes or longer going through level 1&2 support to get to level three support because there is no direct line to level three. And then they promise you a replacement, but what they don’t tell you is that they can’t just send you a new computer, they can only send you a refurbished or returned computer and that they don’t actually have any inventory available, so you spent weeks waiting. And then instead of sending you a 13.3-inch laptop, they send you a 15.6-inch laptop because that’s all they have in stock. And so you call and repeat the process all over again. And again. And wait. I could go on with a lot more gorey detail but suffice to say it’s March and my daughter still doesn’t have an adequate replacement, but at least I now have an email to communicate with a 3rd-level supervisor. Yet still we wait.
Best Buy could have saved me money and time and earned a customer for life, if I had have known I could have driven by my local Best Buy on the way from work and just dropped it off; no muss, no fuss.
So why doesn’t Best Buy highlight this service?
Don’t know but their missing out on a great opportunity to leverage their stores to differentiate on service instead of just competing on price.
So Best Buy, how come you don’t highlight this service?
And Asus why does your support suck so badly? And what are you going to do to improve it?
Kevin Mireles 