Hundreds of PC World and Currys staff could see the job axe swing on Thursday (15 May) when the stores’ owner DSG International (DSGi) announces its latest trading statement and strategy review. DSGi is understood to be closing 200 of its 700 stores as well as considering switching its outlets to a new superstore format, …

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 00:04 GMT Anonymous Coward

All the PCW staff posting here...

I'm with you all the way guys. Anyone from the Stevenage store? I used to be a tech there.

That store was a rarity in that we had, at the time, three techs who knew their stuff really rather well - one ex-network engineer who was just killing time, one ha><0r type who was well into his hardware and custom builds, and me, who had blagged a job after three years of IT helldesk work and had been doing shitty temp jobs up till that point.

Funnily enough, although we could fix computers, we weren't salespersons by any means - we'd much rather show the interested, but technically less literate customers the component racks and point out the various bits required, and build a system for them. This *really* didn't go down to well with management, as you can imagine, as you can't sell an extended warranty for that.

We got off with it though, because, generally, they needed us. Taking advantage of that was fun. Ignoring the dress code and turning up all in black in a trenchcoat on Saturdays was good for winding up management. Customers loved it too. The Anti-Clinic, as one of our regulars described it.

The team spirit in there was utterly fucking brilliant though, and despite getting paid jack shit, doing regular 60-70 hour weeks [unpaid overtime - if you don't arrange it and approve it advance, you don't get paid for it...], management and sales staff [not all of them mind] who wouldn't know a mouse from a motherboard and who would describe computers as having 80 gigabytes of RAM, being left to 'put on your management hat' when the managers themselves didn't want to deal with complaints, customers in tears of frustration because people above you have made such a huge mess of their case - and I saw a few howlers - I still enjoyed it.

It's especially nice when you get a customer who realises that you are completely on their side [while still remaining objective] and drops a 24pack of beer off for the boys at closing time. A few times that happened...

Well, I enjoyed it until I used statutory notice to leave and go contracting [at the end of a two week holiday, HA!] whereupon one of the managers decided to mark me down as having left a month previous to my actual leaving date, and seemingly tried to screw me out of a months pay. Keeping triplicate copies of my [countersigned] letter of resignation helped though.

I feel for those of you who still work there to be honest - all I can say is *get out now* and use your 'front line customer service skills' and 'experience of cutting edge computer hardware' to find yourself a job you won't get kicked in the face for every day by everyone but your direct peers.

I think I'll have a beer tomorrow and toast my fallen comrades - and those still fighting the good fight. Not much of them in there, but they are there.

Anony "knows that not everyone in PCW is a complete fucking moron" Mouse.

Ex PCW Stevenage hench tech

King of the South Side of the store

Defender of his colleagues getting a bollocking from management and customers alike.

You guys all know the score....and the reason I'm posting Anon? Because my screen name is my real name and I know for a fact that DSG has some very, very well paid lawyers who, as noted by a previous posted, take a dim view of this sort of thing - so I had better get my coat.

It's the trenchcoat with a pink badge marked Anony Mouse, PC Clinic on it.

:-)

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 00:04 GMT Chad H.

@ "PC world employee"

perhaps then you can point out to me a mac compatible laptop bag (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, hopefully you can use all that dsg training to work out how the search function works :-) )

There's a public service campaign in the us that goes "friends dont let friends drink and drive" we need a version here in the uk "geeks dont let friends shop at dsg"?

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 00:18 GMT Anonymous Coward

Some history

I got a job at Dixons in 1978, working in Bracknell. Our branch target was around £6k per week with about ten staff on premises your corner shop would struggle to run on. My pay was better than before at £22.30pw (on which I already got taxed! Beware Labour, that's all I'll say...)

I witnessed the hostile takeover of Currys (a family firm at the time) in 1984 while firms like Laskys, Greens and eventually Rumbelows fell by the wayside.

Dixons also owned the prestigious Wallace Heaton photographic shop in New Bond Street, London, where they really did serve Royals and all sorts of wealthy customers. The staff were true specialists selling every premium camera product and I was privileged to spend a short time seconded there. Years later I was asked to help the Hambro (banking) family at their mansion near Cheltenham set up some kit they bought in the City. There were real characters and heroes in the business keeping the Dixons name in lights while still maintaining the horrible "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" high street windows. Yes, customer service was already shite then if anything went wrong! Unless you were a Bond St. customer, of course.

By the time I left the organization the staff daily targets were almost as high as the branch weekly target where I started and the quality of staff was dictated by market rates rather than enthusiasm and product knowledge. Not their fault because passion, personal pride and hobby related work was replaced by hourly rates, social and family breakdown and, of course, those accountants and their spreadsheets! (Oh, running airport hangar sized sites with ten staff again, too.)

No reason to remain anonymous beyond an acknowledgement towards the few remaining employees who care. Find them and make sure you give them every sale you care to give them. They can and will negotiate when pushed so get the best from both worlds.

Now do you understand why my heart is heavy every time I read news about DSGi?...

Paris because... just because... (She's Dim but Cute, OK?)

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 00:18 GMT Anonymous Coward

RE: Where are you all shopping???

I'm sorry, I nearly fell about laughing when I read you post.

"We all train to a selling model that help us understand the customers needs, and make sure that the customer get the products that they need."

"And the aftersales service we offer PC Performance helps our customers get the most out of their computers and helps them when they get stuck."

"and respects our customers."

It's not April fools again is it? is it!? (checks calendar)

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 02:41 GMT Steve

Oh how sweet doesth tasteth revenge

Having worked very briefly for DSG in the distant(ish) past I can tell you what a horrible company they were and probably still are to work for.

DSG makes more money selling spare remote controls, hoover bags and extended warranties than anything else. I remember when they introduced the store line number where you could ring up and speak to someone in a call centre instead of speaking directly to your local store.

They used to treat their call centre and retail staff like shite and the store line was just a way of getting rid of people from Freeserve tech support, putting them on lower payscales and employing loads of students from Sheffield part time on crap pay.

Heaven forbid if you wanted to take something back to a local store if you'd bought it online - no store would take ownership of the issue.

DSG deserve all they get for treating their staff terribly over the years. Their staff, though, deserve better opportunities with better organisations.

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 08:48 GMT David Shea

@peter

Funny enough exactly the same thing happened to me.

Returned a laptop for repair - weekly conflicting reports about where it was (gone to the manufacturer, still in shop etc...) until I went in and pointed out that after 28 days I was entitled to a replacement.

Went to shelf, selected most expensive laptop there, walked out of store with said laptop and replacement warranty.

3 weeks later, phone call saying my (original) laptop was repaired. Went back to store, walked out of store with said laptop.

Laptops 2, PC World 0

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 08:48 GMT David Shea

PC World story II

Knew another guy who got hold of the name of the manager at a PC world store, then walked in on the weekend when said manager wasn't there.

"Mr x told me I could pick up my PC, it's the one over there" to innocent young Saturday shop worker.

"I don't know if I can let you have that without authorisation"

"Well, ring Mr x at home then"

"oh, can't do that. Emmm... Well, I'm sure it will be ok"

Guy walks out of PC world with new PC.

Guy with new PC 1 PC World 0

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 08:48 GMT Anonymous Coward

RE: PC'ed Off - Ian Emery

Haha you think thats bad, you should get a business account at PC World

10m Network Patch cable

on the Shelf was about £30

took them to the Business section as i needed a VAT receipt, I was thinking this would going to be expensive as I needed 3 cables in a hurry (which is why i was at pc world lol )

Got all 3 cables for £24 :D

is that RIpping off the public or what !!!

nice Tip there, if you need to go to PC world. make up your own company and go to the business area ;)

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 08:48 GMT sack

'work faster or else'

'I really like but other ideas were gems of wisdom from the stock team at head office who said the way to deal with the profit loss caused by clearance is to "sell clearance products quicker" ... the less said the better?'

I used to work for PC Servicecall and the management seemed to have been trained from the same manual.

their very limited view of the world was 'If this cell on that spreadsheet goes red then we aren't hitting targets'. problem is somewhere down the line they lost any kind of idea of what the physical events behind those numbers actually were and just resorted to 'hit the targets by working faster *or else*'.

All they care about is their bottom line - and now they don't even have that. I won't be crying for them.

Paris - because she sucks too....

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 08:57 GMT Anonymous Coward

@Oh how sweet doesth tasteth revenge

I can only second these comments, having worked in both call centre and laptop workshop, the management seem to get their positions not by competence, but by the brown nose system, and god forbid if you're not in a managerial post by age 50, you stand a very good chance of being bullied out of your job.

I can't help but feel a little smug about this, but this is mostly self-inflicted, too arrogant with its staff and customer base, guilty of making stupid blunders, ie taking on too many laptop repairs without giving engineers any relevant product training for the new brands/models, implementing system changes without any relevant training, every move is calculated to improve the company's bottom line, not to ensure that every employee is involved and is enthusiastic about the job they do...

I know for a fact that most middle-management types are quietly cacking themselves over this, because their little empires are going to be yanked from under them, without a tear being shed by head office, just to protect the bottom line... El Reg, you really need a dinosaur icon, just for DSGi...

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 09:07 GMT jaydoubleyou

Freeview, freesat, freesat, freeview, let's call the whole thing off

Recently Dixons online were doing a half-price offer on Freesat - £75 instead of the usual £150. I tried buying it (not that I wanted Sky especially, but it would have cost about £300 to have a special aerial erected if I'd wanted Freeview) but they'd sold out. So I thought, well Currys are part of the same group, I'll see if they're doing the same offer.

It was like waking the dead - the assistant looked at me blankly, mumbled "we've got Freeview" then wandered off. I'll take that as a no then. The next day Dixons had it back in stock, so I bought it, a week later they decided actually no, they didn't have it and refunded my money. I ended up paying full price, and I could probably have had it two weeks earlier than I did if I hadn't been messed around by Dixons.

As for PC World, I bought a monitor recently which was the cheapest I could find even after looking online (and I got it even cheaper when it came up at the wrong price at the till, the manager checked and told the assistant to 'knock 10 off' and she took 10% instead of £10 off...). Also bought one of those 1TB Western Digital network drives there, but we can't all be perfect... Most of the prices are laughable, the one that got me recently was the 'Tech Guys' charge of £29.99 (or somewhere thereabouts) to 'fit a USB device'....

I was going to say I'd never celebrate a company going under but then I remember how pleased I was when Tempo went bust (after two YEARS trying to get a dodgy TV replaced it was poetic justice...) - hopefully if it happens the staff there will quickly find suitable jobs (in the case of the freesat/freeview moron, I think stacking shelves might be a bit too intellectually challenging...).

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 09:20 GMT Ascylto

Poor Business Model

I feel really sorry for the DSG staff. Unfortunately, they work for a company with a very poor business model. Someone else has compared this to Apple's sales and marketing strategy, and so will I. This is nothing to do with Apple's products so, please, anti-Apple people, please remain calm and seated ... the oxygen masks will not need to be deployed.

If you've never been into an Apple Store, do. It's a revelation for a UK shopper. ALL the computers are linked to high-speed broadband ... you can go on the net, you can send and receive emails, you can price compare. You can play with or seriously operate all the computers, iPods and other wares. The computers have just about every software program available. There's WiFi throughout the store (and nearby) free to connect.

You can identify staff by coloured tee-shirts, currently light blue for the people who know who to get to help you, red for the people who have the technical knowledge (and they DO know their stuff in their particular specialities) and black for the 'Genius' who has a very wide knowledge. You can book a 20 minute session with a Genius, free of charge, via the internet or phone. You can get practically unlimited tutorials for £90 a year with people who know their stuff. And you will be politely asked if you need help and you won't be pestered. They also (for the most part) seem to have plenty of staff around to help.

It's a store. They want to sell you stuff of course, but as a business model it's superb and, as I said before, a real surprise to UK shoppers who seem to expect the computers to be switched off and the staff to just box-read. I'm not saying they are the only company to employ these methods but I have yet to come across another.

Mine's the one with the iPod in the inside pocket.

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 10:08 GMT Daniel

victims of their own success

The reason PCW isn't like the apple store is it's size. If the apple stores where anywhere near as large with the same kind of footflow, then none of what makes the apple store great would be there? As for the £90 for tutorials etc... well you can get a techfriend from PCW, they will guide you through, they will remotley sort your problem if they can't guide you through. and that's 24/7. And these aren't PCW employees so they do actually know a thing or 2.

As for PCW staff not posting their names... HELLO IM A TECHNICIAN AT A PC WORLD STORE.

man i cringe everytime i say that. The company is rediculous. I still remembersome genius in charge of buying invested in thousands of "3D FUZION" graphics cards.. he/she chose old series cards and budget models at that. Problem with that is that before an upgrade most customers talk to the techies, the majority of who know what theyre on about. sadly we wouldnt recommend these cards ever... i think almost every single one went clearance... and still nobody bought them! in the end i think they were all recalled.

Most of you seem to miss the major factors... the staff in store are what is expected of a very large retail chain. there is training available, but to most people this is just a crappy job and not a means to better them selves.

The serious lack of knowledge comes from the buying department and the people who decide the prices. They are ultimately screwing pcworld... and ya know why? because they probably have enough money in the bank to set them up for a long time. I hope all of senior management get whats coming to them. but sadly they won't the duty managers (who are generally more ill informed than the staff and have the people skills of a rhino) will probably just get shifted around. The people who will suffer most are those who shouldn't

There have been previous comments about instore managers being useless.. Well you know all those horror stories of "I COULDNT GET A REFUND" and all that jazz?? well ya know why? because some duty manager has gone on a power trip. They remind me of those kids at school... the ones who paid no attention, have no future, so jump on the pcw/currys/dixons bandwagon and try to become a manager... and when they get there... POWER!!!! they turn into power mad "jocks". This is all they are. they go back to being the bullies at school, they seek retribution on absolutley everyone.

Give me a decent budget and a hedgefund and I'll fix PCWorld. Give me a job in buying and some access to the price list.

As for slander. Sod it I've had a good run

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 11:02 GMT Ascylto

@Daniel

Thanks, Daniel, you bolster my argument. Although I didn't compare PCWs the fact that the Apple stores aren't as big as PCW shows again why the DSGi model is not working (though I suspect the New York Apple Store is as big as some PCW). The 'Techfriend' is a penny cheaper and is not person-to-person (though it is 24/7 as you say) and if you want the PAYGO version it's £20 a go!

Unfortunately, knowledgeable people like yourself work for a cretinous company and cretinous management.

Some companies seem to do alright on the 'bigger is better' model ... Tesco, ASDA, Costco and more, but I suspect IT stores may do better with an Apple-type model (their stores are opening at a phenomenal rate). I don't know what the Apple behind-the-scenes staff picture is like ... perhaps they have those US inspired huggy sessions (eurgh!). Perhaps there are some ex- or current Apple employees who can tell us?

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 11:37 GMT KarlTh

Customer Service stinks

Yup. I had a CD player go wrong from Currys. The manager insisted I had to accept a credit note. Eventually had to threaten their head office with trading standards before I got a cash refund, after an incredibly stupid conversation by Email with their Customer Stiffing Centre.

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 11:42 GMT John Colby

There's supposed to be a new PC world store opening...

... in New Oscott, at The Beggar's Bush (name of a pub). New Oscott is between Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield. Hasn't been much building activity there recently, from what I can tell.

What now amazes me is that how this action wasn't foreseen earlier. The Credit Crunch has been with us since last summer, the retail crisis since before Christmas, and the economic projections available since Northern Rock nearly went under.

Doesn't anyone in that company look at "the books" any more?

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 14:21 GMT Anonymous Coward

PC-World - Temple of Doom

I like PC World - I mean where else can a man go when the wife is of buying shoes/Plants/rubbish

I like to wander around and look at the shiny stuff it calms me down.

I once bought a Fujitsu-Siemens PC from them and it was a good deal.

No I would not buy their Tech support or any of their warranties.

But I do want/demand a tech place I can wander around and be at peace with myself while my wife empties my pockets in B&Q/Sparky-Shoes-R-US.

If they merge with Curry's and I get double the space to wander I will be very happy.

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 15:28 GMT Adrian Clint

ExDSG supplier

If their is one thing i've noticed about all the DSG staff on hear is that they seam to have the same problem with the world there.

Have they never herd of the word "their"?

Is it a thing they tech them at DSG?

or maybe it's the same person righting all the same comments under different names?

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Tuesday 13th May 2008 21:39 GMT Anonymous Coward

Ex DSGI Employee

I used to work for the group for some time and I can tell you that this has been coming for some time now, It's a shame for the remianing decent staff and i know their numbers are decreasing due to the way the Senior Management treat there staff like children!! I would suggest to those reamining staff to vote with their feet and to walk away now. The whole company from the stores to the B2B model are at risk of drowning.

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Wednesday 14th May 2008 09:10 GMT Anonymous Coward

its not the fault of the shop staff

I'm telling you its not the shop staffs fault this has happened its the senior ranks. Don't blame the shop staff.

The place is full of old timers, with no clue about the future. People trying to protect their jobs and being cut throat about it. As soon as a talented person starts there with some forward thinking, they either get hustled out of a job or stopped from progressing/voicing their opinion.

Its a company that people either use to get somewhere, or stay for 20- years, never to really make a difference, so the talent gets lost and the old timers continue to make bad decisions.

Over-budget, failed projects managed by people with no experience + poor decision making = failure.

I just hope that they get rid of the people that do more harm than good, rather than get rid of the talent.

The DSG train is finally grounding to a hault.....

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Wednesday 14th May 2008 10:10 GMT steve

Tech Guy Speaking

Its no wonder really I agree with a lot of these comments its so rip off on prices, personally I visit approx 40 customers per week, and what amazes me is thats 40 every week 52 weeks a year, surly that says something about the components inside (most of the components are the same especially mobos across brands ecs,foxconn, so nothing of real quality) sometimes we dont know if were fitting good or bad parts

Oh then theres the small form factor pc's we design ourselves and get philips or some other mug to put there badge on it, did anybody in the design team think about overheating? why arent there any fans??? then they wonder why theres such a high failure rate

Then if you get a problem you have to call our really expensive phone line and hold for 30 mins only to be told to run a recovery to fix the problem.

Our award winning diagnostic centre is pure crap so if ours has won awards i wouldnt like to phone the rest, the amount of repeat visits to customers i have to do where they send out faulty parts, or just the wrong parts, then we as engineers get hammered from above because our completion rate is crap.

Oh and we get a lovely vauxhall corsa or ford fiesta to try and carry everything in! while managers have bigger cars for what there paperwork

Also why do we have to go to pcw stores to fix their pc's, why cant the guys and girls in their fix it themselves? oh thats right there too busy trying to sell the next person through the door norton antivirus and a surge protector!

so roll on my redundancy payment I will be happy to leave! the managers are only interested in sales figures not about people, the company had gallop do a staff survey last year, the feedback was so negative there still struggling to release the results of the survey a year later, and their sending all the erea managers on triaining courses so they know how to deal with their staff, i have worked for DSGI for 4 years, in this time they have never supplied me a contract of employment, or have they given me any training, they supply us with a sat nav but if that breaks you have to get it repaired or replace it yourself, they supply us a laptop, wait for it, it has no cd/dvd drive, has 256mb of ram and the processor is the slowest of slows, oh and they give you a company fuel card theres only 2 garages in a 20 mile radious i can use it at supposedly as the company get a bigger discount, however our own personal millage is deducted from our wages at the full rate we pay at the pumps, so there making money of us staff, oh and in 4 years ive never had a bonus, so as you can read from this the company is just as bad to work for.

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Wednesday 14th May 2008 15:48 GMT Anonymous Coward

@Adrian Clint

Perhaps when commenting on another posters spelling is the one time you should carefully check your own before clicking the post comment button.

I won't point the mistakes out, are you capable of finding it yourself?

Clue: there are four

:)

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Wednesday 14th May 2008 16:09 GMT Anonymous Coward

Another "Techguy" speaking

I don't mind what happens to the company, I would happily take redundancy tomorrow, morale is so low on the field service side at the moment.

I believe the problem with DSG is the same problem you have with many big companies and that is the over reliance on figures and targets. Middle management have completely lost sight of what makes us money and that is happy customers.

To give an example as a field repairer I may find myself in situations where I would leave a customers house knowing that their product isn't fixed or maybe has a secondary fault but I will choose not to order a part as this will impact on my completion rate. My manager will use the completion rate as an indicator as to how well I am doing my job, so like staff in any other organisation I now work to achieve better figures rather than what I believe my job should be which is repair products in a timely fashion and try to keep the customer as happy as I can. It is likely that I will have received a faulty part anyway as so many jobs are auctioned out to agency staff who have little experience and so tend to return parts incorrectly, this results in faulty parts being redistributed to other engineers.

I started off my job many years ago with the best of intentions but over the past 5 or so years the company has become so dominated with spreadsheets, figures, targets and initiatives that the only important things now are numbers in cells in spreadsheets and not the customers we want to help, this may make me sound cynical but im sure every one of us who works in a large organisation can relate to what I am saying.

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Wednesday 14th May 2008 16:45 GMT Anonymous Coward

@Adrian Clint

Apologies for previous post Adrian, there are actually seven spelling errors in your post.

Also I must apologize for my grammatical error, I initially thought there was a single error but later found there to be more so I changed my post but not correctly it would seem.

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Wednesday 14th May 2008 22:11 GMT Tech Girl

My friends and colleagues

This is the first time I have ever posted a message on any forum, the reason I am doing so is because I am so angry at people who think it is funny that my friends and colleagues could be losing their jobs tomorrow.

It must be lovely to be so smug and safe in the fact that they are perfect at their jobs and never make mistakes.

I know pc world is not perfect and i dont care that the cables are over priced, i dont care that you object to us selling tvs (its called making money and growing your market share so you can stay in business) we know things are wrong and we are trying to fix them from the ground up.

I hope you never have to face redundancy and your pensions stay in tact.

By the way if you truly want to experience over pricing and poor service I suggest you buy your contact lenses from optical express.

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Thursday 15th May 2008 23:38 GMT Matt Quinn

SUPERB! NEWS!

Excellent news!

I hope the fat, lazy, pig-ignorant slob in a certain Edinburgh branch of Currys who mis-sold the insurance cover on my 77 year old Mother in law's telly rots on the dole 'till he's p-ing into a bag through a tube.

I wound up springing for a new TV (from another store) rather than leave the old lady without her only source of entertainment. This piece of vermin actually though it FUNNY to rip off an old lady ...and he's was apparently the store MANAGER!

Scum of the earth! They've been a laughing stock for YEARS; treated people with contempt. They deserve everything that's coming!

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Friday 23rd May 2008 15:21 GMT Mike

They are human y'know

Just want people to remember that the majority of the staff in these stores, no matter how limited their knowledge of IT are still human. They face a difficult time with the threat of redundancy in a pretty harsh economic climate.

I can't help feeling that financially most of the people submitting to this thread are much better paid (or if student then likely to get better paid) than the people working in the stores. It's the company to blame, with poor training and development and even worse management, not the staff who I genuinely think are no worse than any other high street store..

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