In a World of their own (PC World)

Member Name: Lehen

Product:	PC World
Date:	16/07/09 (96 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great store to check prices and for last resort shopping

Disadvantages: Dire customer service, extreme cold selling and mostly overpriced

Everyone in the UK who owns a PC reading this review right now will of heard of the retail chain known as PC World. For those of you that have not yet experienced the joys of such a company, let's sit down and look at the pros and cons of shopping with them.

I've shopped in various stores throughout the UK over the last ten years and they all appear to offer the same service throughout the land.

Products
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They have a lot of mid-range models and high-end models to choose from. If you're a first time buyer and want a shop to check out your very first PC face-to-face and get a feel for the model you buy before you buy it there are very few retailers in the country that have a better selection to choose from.

Other than PCs they stock a large range of other products such as PC software, games, related books, additional parts and hardware for all your computing needs, be it for business or personal use.


Customer Service
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This is probably the most interesting aspect of the retailer you'll find when asking someone who's shopped in PC World throughout the country. After being a regular visitor of the store for ten years I can give a good evaluation of this for you and break it down if you are a first time buyer (which I was when I first started going there) to a professional business user.

If you are a first time buyer, the manner of cold selling that the assistants use can be extreme and are often known to put pressure on the buyer into buying something they don't need. Business is business - yet customers should really know a bit about computers before going into the shop if you plan to buy - or there's a good chance you'll walk out with something you didn't really need or want in the first place.

If you are a business user and are looking for a PC they appear to forget this and move straight into trying to get you to sign up for a business account where you can rent a workstation over a given time instead of buying one. This first seems to be good, but beware of impulse decisions, as if you do the math and consider the reality measures of taking this offer, you're going to regret it later if you fall victim to their cold selling techniques - which in a nutshell, is the biggest issue almost every single person has with the store who are regulars.

If you are female entering this shop - beware! A large number of my female friends always comment to me about how they feel like the assistants treat them like idiots and assume because they are female they don't have a clue about PCs. To be fair, I have to agree that out of all of the PC World stores I've visited - the dreaded 'sexism' issue seems to raise its ugly head.

Staff
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From my experience, a large amount of the staff who are employed at PC World treat people as objects and not as customers, this alone is not called for when shopping in a store where you could be spending hundreds of your hard earned pounds in.

I have seen and heard a lot of staff in a number of stores insult and patronise potential customers who find it hard to ask questions about something they don't know about. We all know the type of people here - your gran who is looking to buy a PC for their grandkid for Christmas, or your typical technophobe who is curious in getting themselves online for the first time.

In addition, if you are the type of person who knows your computer inside out and knows what every bit of hardware does and to what degree - if you speak to most of the staff in the stores, you'll find that their knowledge on computers, hardware and software is basic and most are unable to answer a technical question without calling for assistance themselves!

Price
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PC World is good for a number of things and the biggest and most useful aspect of the store for me is to use the store as a price checker and price comparison when planning on upgrading, or seeing what new specs are available.

Summary
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To sum everything up - this store is great if you want to browse stores in your high street, or retail park, to get first hand experience of what's out there and what's new.

If you are dubious over cold selling, want value for money, good customer service and treated like a customer and not an object there are far better places to spend your money.

When all those people say things like "PC World is <enter swear words of your choice here>", they are not far from the truth.

Summary: Their world is different from the real one