Wal-Mart is known widely to be one of the biggest retailers in the country
and world. The retail giant has enough market might to have some control over
pricing and also has a reputation of having some of the poorest customer
service and in-store help of any retail chain.
When Wal-Mart began talking about ways to expand its presence into untapped
markets it talked about two things. First it said that it wanted to expand its
stores into Asian countries. Wal-Mart also said that it was eying
entering into the electronics services arena and offer PC repairs,
installations and other service that competitors like Best Buy and Circuit City
already offered in stores.
Many familiar with the type of customer service Wal-Mart typically offers
wondered exactly how the retail giant would integrate this type of higher-level
service into its stores. The Wall Street Journal reports that Wal-Mart
has teamed up with Dell to offer electronics services in 15 of its stores
in the Dallas, Texas area.
The service centers installed into the test stores will be manned by Dell
employees and will be called Solution Station by Dell. Solution Station
services will include repair and consulting for networking products and
computers sold at Wal-Mart and would also cover the installation of flat panel
TVs and home theater systems.
Dell has offered some services in customer homes in the past with its direct
sales business, but this is the first time Dell has offered services like this
through retail outlets. Over the next few months, Wal-Mart says that it will
evaluate the service. If successful the service could be rolled out to
additional stores.