On Friday afternoon, Becky and I headed over to Home Depot to pick up a bunch of things for some small projects. We ultimately left without buying anything.
Not that we had a whole lot of things to buy in the first place. For such a huge store, the selection was pretty poor. We looked at cheap metal shelves and found that they didn’t have much to choose from and the ones they had weren’t cheap. Many of the other items on the list, none of which were obscure in any way, couldn’t be found. Perhaps they were there, somewhere, but we had trouble even finding anyone on the floor to ask. The entire time we were there, numerous pages echoed through the place asking for someone — anyone — to help a customer.
As you can imagine, on a Friday afternoon, with everyone buying stuff for their weekend honey-do lists, as we were, it was pretty busy. Nevertheless there was a single staffed checkout lane open. One. It had about a half-dozen people in line. The “self-serve” lines were open, but they were also pretty packed. We got into the only open lane with an actual human in it and it immediately shut down while the customer ahead of us argued with them about the price of something that had been mislabeled and stocked in the wrong place.
We got fed up and left, but first I decided I was going to let them know why we were leaving empty-handed. I started out at the customer service desk, which also had a long line, and where an employee had just finished a shouting match with a different customer. So instead I went to the person monitoring the self-serve lanes and told her, “I know this isn’t your fault, but there’s something you might want to tell whatever manager is on duty.” I then went into our experience, particularly the lack of checkout lines. Her response was to point to the self-serve lines and say, “These are open.”
It’s that last part that drives me up the wall the most. These huge stores like Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Lowes, and so forth, crawl into an area on a slime trail of tax breaks from the city. In return they promise jobs, but they don’t deliver. Four self-serve lanes means three fewer jobs at any given time. Nobody on the floor to help people means even fewer jobs. Sure, many people will say, “Well I always know what I want, so I don’t care that there’s nobody on the floor, and the self-serve lane means I get done faster and don’t have to deal with anyone!” Maybe so, but you’re still paying for things that you aren’t getting. It’s not like the prices at Home Depot are that fantastic; we were only there because our credit card company gives us a break there.
We ended up going to the closest thing we have to a local hardware store, where we got just about everything we were looking for, including advice from a guy who kept us from buying the wrong paint, which we almost got at Home Depot. When I needed someone to cut a key for me, there were three people nearby to help. And the prices weren’t much different from what we’d seen earlier.
In conclusion: David Wilcox is right.
I remember reading an article not too long ago regarding this exact thing. Basically these large chains don’t care about the customer and the people that work there are generally over-worked due to lack of staffing and aren’t paid all that great. Doesn’t make for a good combination :(
This reminds me of an experience Martin, Randy, and I had at a Macaroni Grill. We got generally bad service (including a bus person leaving someone else’s beer bottle on our table while they were doing something else), and we thought that one of the reasons was that they had a different person 1) seat us, 2) take our drink order, 3) bring our drinks, 4) take our food order, 5) bring our food, and 6) clear our dishes. We weren’t even really sure who our waiter was supposed to be. Apparently this is an “efficient” way to operate. When we complained to the manager, we were told “lots of restaurants do it this way.” Well that certainly fixed that.
When we did our basement a couple of months back, we spent a lot of time at the various big box home stores. We had similar experiences at both Home Depot and Lowe’s, but I was impressed with the customer service at the regional chain Menard’s. It was a breeze to purchase materials and get a bill of sale that our contractor could use to pick up the items on a later date. They’d even set the stuff aside, unlike Lowe’s, which deigned to stick a post-it note on the stuff we purchased while leaving it on display.
The big box stores are nearly all universally lame. I got to Home Depot and I go to Lowes only if I know exactly what I want and they don’t have it at my local hardware store, which I love. So let’s see, at Lowes/HomeDepot this year I’ve bought a bunch of composite lumber (not sold at my local store), and nearly a ton of dirt for a garden bed. At my local hardware store I’ve purchased key locks, stain, pvc pipes, screws, nuts, bolts, etc…
I’ve had mixed experience at Home Despot. When installing a new dish washer, I needed a compression valve (?) and /thought/ I’d figured out the right size diameter. They didn’t have the right combination and when I asked the guy he’s all “look, they NEVER make that. what you want is X diameter.” Sure enough, he was right and I’d measured badly. On the other hand, I’ve gone in plenty of times to be looked at like I’m talking moon language when I ask things like “do you have any screws smaller than quarter inch diameter?”
The local small hardware store however ALWAYS gives me good advice and their prices are about the same as HD. They also never hesitate to tell me “you’re asking for X, but Y is cheaper and will do exactly what you want.” I go there as often as I can.
I’d agree with all of the above. As Dave T. and I are in the same town, I’d agree Menards seems to be a fair amount better at customer service. Though the local hardware store is not a small amount pricier than the big boys, great customer service and advice are freely and happily given, unlike Lows and Despot. Lows in particular treats their employees poorly, overworking & underpaying. I had an old colleague who worked at a Lowes out east during college, and she was more than harassed just for being a woman working at Lows, let alone fir being a lesbian in a bible-thumping area of tobacco raising. She certainly had cause for a lawsuit, but she got smart and just got a new job. Self-serve lines……
Yes I agree, I have done business with Home Depot on several occasions but only to take advantage of the 12 Months no interest they run occasionally. I buy only my big things from them while leaving the nuts and bolts to the local stores. Service has always been terrible and I can never get in and out in a timely manner. I’m just waiting for them to get hit with a BIG lawsuit when someone gets hurt cutting wood or lifting stock or something like that. It can actually be a dangerous place for the Non-contractor type or for anyone.