I think Radio Shack is beginning to live up to its name: a shanty for old technology.
OK, I’m really just riffing on an annoying in-store experience I had. I needed to get splitter for my cable so the one cord could go to my TV and my cable modem. They had plenty of splitters, but apparently they didn’t carry the kind that could handle the Internet. When I asked where to get one, the sales associate directed me to my cable company, which would charge me $50 for the splitter.
Dejected and annoyed, I wandered into CompUSA for another errand. On a whim I asked a sales guy about the splitter. He directed me to the TV section and pulled out the one I needed, priced the same as the ones Radio Shack had but supposedly wouldn’t work. Incredulous I asked the guy if would work for my Internet connection. He said he has six of them in his house and his cable TV and Internet work fine.
Smiling, I decided not to visit Radio Shack again.
Always use radio shack’s website (or dead tree catalog if they still produce such a thing) for part numbers before going to the store. The sales folk there are barely competent to take your money, don’t expect them to know what it is that you actually want to buy. And resist the gold plating. It doesn’t nothing.
Oh, and call ahead to make sure they’ve actually got what you want. They keep next to nothing in the actual store, but I’ve found they usually have some sort of storage area somewhere else in the mall that they keep a lot of inventory. Make them go to the storage area and hold the part in their hand before you drive over.. their computers often lie.
Or buy cables and stuff off the internet for 1/10th the price they charge at the shack. :)
Hmmmm, it must be cheaper off the ‘net, but I haven’t seen cables, etc. for computers any cheaper than the Shack at any other store.
Personally, I’d say that Radio Shack guy must be a bit confused, as their splitter probably would have worked just as well. Meh, their loss. I haven’t been too impressed with them either, and my Dad detests them for their bad customer service (don’t ask him about it unless you want to hear his angsty opinion on it).
What you experianced in Radio Shack is simply bad customer service. I would call 1-800-TheShack and let them know – or speak to the managers to each of those stores you had the problem with.
As a Radio Shack employee, I have to go through several long, very technical tests before I can even touch the floor. Resisters, capacitors, Home Entertainment, Wireless Technology, etc.. that, however, does not include curent in-store inventory.
An experiance salesperson would of known that the bi-directional splitters would of worked just fine for the TV/Cable Modem solution (through, you really should be running the cable modem seperately from the outside cable access point, for best transfer speed).
As for the second issue, the one about the mall and the stuff being in the backroom. Those are known as Clearance Outlets, and I can quite understand the issue there. Inventory on Clearance Outlets can be more then a nightmare.. it can be impossible. It has to do with items arriving from other stores broken, damaged or just plain mislabled.. and many clearance items are the capacitors, resistors, etc that you need to finish your project. I will be copy/pasting this complaint and sending it to the right department.
As we go into Christmas, you’re going to run into more an more ‘seasonal’ new people. Their only function is to run the cash register. Pay special attention to if they are wearing a name tag or not – it takes about two months to get your first, so if a person doesn’t have one, he might be brand spanking new. Also, ask a few small questions to test his/her knowledge. If the salesperson doesn’t know about bi-directional splitters, it’s well advised that you move on to another salesperson.
There should always be an experianced salesperson in the store at all times – either a manager or a senior sales person. Find them, and you should get more then a sloppy answer.
I know when you come to my store, I will go the extra mile. Company policy says.. that if Radio Shack doesn’t have it, and you need it today, we are supposed to *find* the product elsewhere – even if it’s a competitor.
Ok, ok, so I had to put in the opposite side of this argument. What can I say? I love where I work, and when people trash it, I gotta speak up ;) Sorry about the bad customer service!
Incidently, the paper Catalogs were discontinued in 2000 – we started carrying more Brand Names and there were legal pricing issues. A ‘parts’ version of the catalog (2004/2005) is available by request in-store.
– Dave
Radio Shack
The problem with Radio Shack is often the customer, who has no idea what he wants (or wants something that doesn’t exist) and blames RS when they either (A) buy the wrong thing or (B) are told it doesn’t exist.
You probably bought the same splitter in CompUSA that you saw in RS. The CompUSA guy wired a bunch into his house and got lucky that they passed the bandwidth required to allow his cablemodem to continue operating. Of the two, I would say the RS employee was the smarter as he knew the regular cable splitters are not rated to pass cablemodem signals, and if you ever have a problem with your cablemodem, the first (or maybe 2nd) thing the cable company will ask you is if you installed any splitters on your line. If you did, they won’t do another thing to help you until you take them out. He knew this and was trying to save you aggrivation (Though he may have been just completely clueless). Either way, the RS employee was right and the compUSA guy gave you have a false sense of security.
I don’t work for RS and I believe they have a lot of problems but before you post some smarmy snippet like the above perhaps you should look into what you are talking about in depth first.