Customer service at local Home Depot <rant>

[Senile Old Fart]

I went to HD yesterday and purchased 34 sheets of 7/16 osb.
I asked for the 10% beat the competition discount.
Long story short I got the HD pricing.

I pointed out to the clerk the error and he said I would need to go to customer service desk and he would phone down and explain to them.
Ok, cool.
I go to the CS counter and a woman named Ellen assists me.

She will begrudgingly do the price match, but I tell her cancel the sale then, as I want the 10% discount or I would have just went to Ziggys and made my purchase.

She states commodity items are not included in the 10% policy.
I inform her that the website does not state that. She says she has no control over the website.

I inform her that she has the authority to pass along the information to someone that does.
She rolls her eyes at me. ( that pissed me off, but I maintained my manners, wasn't upset at all before her eye roll)
After multiple discussions with 3 other employees I get the 10% discount.

When I got home I emailed HD from their website informing them that Ellen behaved like a bitch and if that is their customer service policy they might as well hire Kurt Busch to drive the #20 car also.

Within 45 minutes of transmitting the email , corp customer service was calling me and asking for more details, then apologizing like crazy for the situation.

Asked if it would be alright for the store manager to call me and continue the case. I said sure.
3 hrs later the manager calls, leaves voice mail asking for return call and wants to make things right.

In this case it sounds like HD Corp isn't to happy with Ellen.

Maybe Ellen will get schooled in proper customer service procedures. ( 300 yds away is Costco, she would never make it in their customer service booth. Those people are always happy polite and courteous)

It seems that the Giant chain is actually wanting to keep customers happy, just dam hard to do with 321,000 employees to ride heard on.

total original receipt $497.82, adjusted receipt $440.72, saved $57.10 by standing my ground :encouragement:

As Barry well knows, your employees are who make you what you are.

 

[metalman]

I had a similar experience at Lowes but I shorted out and left about $1200.00 worth of merchandice right on a cart at the check-out.
Glad you got results, most of the time I never get a response from emails.

 

[Bob Heine]

It's funny you mention Costco. The founders believed that satisfied, even happy employees were the second best advertisement for their company. Second only to satisfied customers.

Costco vs. Wal-Mart (as reported by the companies)

Employees covered by company health insurance
Costco 82%
Wal-Mart 48%

Insurance-enrollment waiting periods (for part-time workers)
Costco 6 months
Wal-Mart 2 years (if you work less than 24 hours per week it's never)

Portion of health-care premium paid by company
Costco 92%
Wal-Mart 66%

Costco pays starting employees at least $10 an hour, and with regular raises a full-time hourly worker can make $40,000 annually within 3.5 years. Cashiers are paid $10.50 to $17.50 an hour.

Bottom Line
Costco’s practices are clearly more expensive, but they have an offsetting cost-containment effect: Turnover is unusually low, at 17% overall and just 6% after one year’s employment. In contrast, turnover at Wal-Mart is 44% a year - close to the industry average. Costco shrinkage rate -- lost and stolen inventory -- is about 1/10th the industry average, a sign that employees are stealing a lot less and also preventing customers from stealing).

I added Costco stock to my 401k eight years ago and it has more than doubled in value while also paying dividends. Costco makes happy stockholders as well (but not Wall Street analysts -- all this stuff is just "wasting money" to them). It's not magic and it isn't a secret but Walmart and Home Depot don't get it.

 

[NoobDude]

Well said Bob, I've been a marketing tool for costco since the green card days so clearly their stratagy worked on me. I once flew from Hawaii to Oahu bought a new membership and 4 tires for the isuzu 4x, tied em together as two 'luggage' got home and paid a shop to swap the tires and STILL saved $100 over the Big Island prices. It was common to see a group of 3 or 4 from the BI traveling with 5 or 6 foot coolers stalking up there. And guess what. They drove the local prices down to the advantage of all the locals many of whom were land rich but cash poor. I see that as a positive effect myself though I imagine the local mercantile owners felt differently.

And yes, I'm the same way about SPI.

 

[Barry]

I'm with metalman, I have left cart fulls before because of piss-poor attitudes, I just won't put up with it.

Myself, I don't care if you don't like my product, I can live with that and as a painter, I understand we all have different tastes but I want all people treated with respect on the phone and I want the new guy asking a million questions treated the same way we treat a professional painter.
You can say, you did not like my product and that is fine but I don't ever want to hear that our customer service is poor or someone was rude on the phone.

We are training a fourth person to answer the phone, this guy has been with me two years, he was a painter and he is smart and just a good guy but we are taking it slow and listening to his conversations, I think we have a winner but we are continuing to fine tune him as he does come off as mono, sometimes.
He has a goal to reach and when he does, he will get a big raise and he is just about there.

In all fairness, a big raise at a box store is probably 25-50 cents an hour and it is no wonder they don't give two cents about the customer, where this guy will get $2.00 an hour and from a selfish standpoint, I know no one else in town can pay enough to take him away with more money.
For a small company, our wages are very high but we have no turnover and 100's of people in town wanting to work here because of the way we treat our employees, right down to Andy going to walmart every Monday to buy food for the week and the fridge is always full.

The big companies, just don't get it.

 

[Senile Old Fart]

Henry Ford once said that you have to pay a man a livable wage so he has enough money to buy your products.
Henry Kaiser once said that you need to give your employees health care so they are at work more often and more productive.
Both those Henry's built empires on their ways of doing things.
Today's big business has forgotten these 2 simple facts made by "founding" fathers of industry.
In the 1940's Wall Street Journal went so far as to call Mr. Kaiser a communist for his health care program.

The store manager called me yesterday and was quite startled when I told him there was nothing he could do for me, that I wasnt wanting any freebies. That all I wanted was to inform them of the poor attitude of an employee.

Some years ago I had a similiar beef at a local store, I asked for the Manager, little did I know it was the owner.
I told him my problem with his cashier.
He offered to give me a full refund and keep the item,($30 or so).
I told him thanks but no thanks, I dont want a freebie, I want him to be able to stay in business and compete against the big guys. He was taken back.
He then let me know he was the owner and turly appreciated the concern for his business.
Said if I ever want a big ticket item, see him and I will get it at his cost.
I said cool, does that include firearms?
He says anything I sell.
Never have taken him up on the offer.