Samsung Expands uBreakiFix Collaboration With New 'Flagship' Stores

pcmag.com:

The next Samsung phone you break with ham-handed handling may be in line for some high-touch care if you live near one of 50 uBreakiFix stores that are due to get upgraded this year to “flagship Samsung repair locations.”

The first five flagship shops—in Dallas(Opens in a new window), Houston(Opens in a new window), San Antonio(Opens in a new window), Orlando,(Opens in a new window) and Los Angeles(Opens in a new window)—have already soft-launched. A press release says these locations get “additional Samsung repair equipment, including specialized repair jigs, and increased inventory stock by model and color," allowing uBreakiFix to handle a higher volume of repairs. Samsung will also use this initiative to try out new repair initiatives, procedures, and training before any larger rollout.

Both Samsung and uBreakiFix will choose which stores to designate as flagship spots by looking at metrics that include the volume of Samsung devices fixed, the time needed for that work (the announcement says uBreakiFix typically wraps up “94% of walk-in repairs on Samsung flagship devices in the same day”) and customer-satisfaction numbers. Another key factor: a store’s location in a major metropolitan area. 

This move is the latest collaboration between Samsung and uBreakiFix, a franchise chain that’s been owned since 2019(Opens in a new window) by the handset-insurance firm Asurion. In 2018, Samsung began supporting same-day repairs to some Galaxy phones at 300-plus authorized locations and has since promoted electronics recycling at uBreakiFix stores.

Samsung customers can also now book uBreakiFix’s “We Come to You” house-call service, in which a tech meets them at the location of their choice to fix a device, via Samsung’s