I think I pissed off the CompUSA Guy

[wattage]

So I had to run around town during the Keynote yesterday, but I had been following the announcements thanks to MacRumors wonderful coverage! I had seen that the iMac was the first to be introduced with Intel.

At CompUSA a young couple was eyeing an iMac, they sounded like they were about to pull the trigger. I asked the girl (while the salesboy took the guy aside) if they were really gonna buy today. She said yeah probably.

I told her they should at least wait another hour because "...right now, this very minute, Steve Jobs is unveiling the Intel Macs, and the iMac was the first one announced..."

Then the guy and salesboy came back, and the guy wanted to know what we were talking about, I kinda looked at the salesboy and said "sorry, but..." and repeated what I told her. I said the Apple Store will be back up and running in an hour or so, and they should check it out.

Don't you guys agree that this young couple had the right to know their options. At CompUSA, when I purchased my first Mac, I did not know anything about MacRumors or their buying guide, so mere weeks after I bought the 'ol TiBook, they added SuperDrives (after the salesman told me that DVD burning drives were a ways down the road for laptops!!).

Anyway...any thoughts?

 

[Lazyhound]

Don't you guys agree that this young couple had the right to know their options.

Yup.

 

[miloblithe]

You had every right to tell them, and the salesman had every right to be a little annoyed.

 

[emw]

Good for you to tell them. The CompUSA guy could have recovered nicely with a "Here's my card, we should be receiving these in stock soon, so if you'd like I can give you a call when they come in."

That way he may still secure the sale, even if it's delayed.

 

[al3000]

Good for you, they deserved to know!

 

[kretzy]

That's your community service done for the year.

 

[wattage]

Yeah, I tend to open my mouth everytime I am in that store. I tell everyone about this site and to check the buying guides if they are new to Macs....Everyone should do at least a little research before buying something in the $K.....especially if they are a Thousandaire.

 

[Sideonecincy]

The people at the Comp USA near me treat everyone like they never heard of a mac before. If I was on the market to buy an iMac (and didnt know about this wonderful site), someone telling me that I was about to buy a machine that was going to be outdated in an hour would be a big help. Imagine when they got home and set it up...I still get jealous when new powermacs come out and I bought the first generation one

 

[xyian]

Well, they treat everyone like a newbie at CrapUSA because they themselves are newbies. They don't know a thing about Macs there. It's like the area of the store that's wax nostalgic or something. It's like being the person that goes into the cigarette store and asks for pipe tobacco.
Good job, glad someone was in on the in and informed someone else of it!

 

[QCassidy352]

You had every right to tell them, and the salesman had every right to be a little annoyed.

agreed. You weren't in the wrong, but I'd still be annoyed if I were the salesman.

 

[steelfist]

something like this happened to me over a year ago. theres this guy who's deciding which one to buy, a radeon 9600 pro, or a radeon 9800 se, and the sales person was saying: the 9800 se is a lot faster. i joined the conversation and told them perfornance wise, 9600pro is faster because of some major cutting that the 9800 se has like only 4 pipelines.

afterwards, the salesperson have that look, like that they are outsmarted, humiliated, and offended. i often help out people in the computer center buy choices, and always leave the option to them, and always try to give the people what they need, like helping this dude buy a gaming machine, so i recommended a geforce 6800 ultra and a athlon 64 cpu, and stuff, wheras helping this guy who is on a tight budget get a very good price-performance ratio computer.

that's why the store and other nearby stores think i'm some troublemaker who ruins their buisness, even though i always help the customers buy the right computers for the right task. back then i was a pc enthusiast who hates macs. look where i am happily now

another instance, i had the opposite effect. i became quite respected in a fortress store by showing people how good the imac is, and the people are like: "they are like that? i never knew that!" helped a tourist buy an ibook, and he told me that all he wants is a notebook to surf the net, and some office work. i told him the ibook is the best bet, and showed him dashboard, expose, safari, office, and the osx enviorament. so even though i'm just a passerby, i helped fortress and converted a couple of people to apple users.

most of the salespeople who sells computers which i have met don't know what they are selling. they just "sell". like wattage said, people should do the research themselves, and never never ask a sales person to chose a computer for you.