Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Customer comments on the web...

Does this surprise anyone? Anyone?

http://www.instigatorblog.com/is-home-depot-scamming-people-with-fake-comments/2007/03/19/

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Cranky Customer Service at HD

Cranky Customer at HD:

http://www.crankycustomer.com/home_depots_public_relations_backfire.html

Thoughts from a customer

Thoughts from a customer:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/HomeDepotShaftingShoppers.aspx

A Home Depot Forum

A whole HD Forum:

http://www.indeed.com/forum/cmp/Home-Depot.html

Life as an ASM at Home Depot

Another link to a blog about being an ASM at HD:

http://www.indeed.com/forum/cmp/Home-Depot/05390c183c137e1b717d4104

Prank (?) at Home Depot NYC

Here is a link to a "prank" which played out in HD NYC:

http://www.improveverywhere.com/2006/08/19/slo-mo-home-depot/

Customer Service at HD

Here is a link to another blog that mentions life at HD:

http://www.universalhub.com/node/10158

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Walkie-Talkies...

The store has now gone to walkie-talkies, as have many HD stores. The idea behind these lovely communication devices is of course to enhance customer service. Nice in theory, horrible in practice.

First of all, everyone in the store is tuned to the same frequency. During the weekends, this means a continual stream of noise--making it almost impossible to discern the relevant pages versus all other noise.

Second, managers have completely taken these over as a way to walk around the store and bark out "bay maintenance orders," "Plumbing, someone needs to clean up the faucet display;" "Hardware, re-stock your end caps;" "Garden, fix the seed bags." So, again, performing customer service is trumped by cleaning up the store.

Third, the walkie-talkies combined with the call buttons pretty much tether you to your department. See what happens with an ASM has to cover your department if there is an "extended wait."

The above being said, it does have some advantages. With everyone having a walkie-talkie, it does make it easier to get an answer to a question--that is if the associate hasn't turned down the volume because the racket was so loud.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Part-time Employee Hours

No wonder there is constant turnover. I'm gone from 35 hours to 12 hours to 24 hours to 8 hours to 4 hours per week. I appreciate the effort they've given to being consistent.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Another proud customer at Home Depot

Here's a story, not mine:

http://foxindetox.blogspot.com/2007/07/home-depot-vacationday.html

HD and Customer Service

It seems HD Corporate really cannot figure out why customer service is an issue for their stores. Let's look at the likely issues:

1) Poor Scheduling.
A store will routinely have one associate scheduled for a major department. I'm not sure the rules on scheduling, but it seems they're allergic to any predictability in the schedule.

2) Associates who don't know jack.
Sometimes HR prides itself in sticking the most clueless person in a department. For example, frequently, you might find an associate in electrical who does not know even the most basics about electrical wiring.

3) Associate job description.
Associates job description is customer service, but frankly there is more time spent on telling us to clean up the bays. The new motto for HD should be "If you cannot put it back, then we can help." Store Mgmt acts like it cares about customer service, but they are more concerned with a clean store--as the district mangers seem have a thorn in their ass about that. So, frequently, store associates will focus on cleaning as opposed to customers--because that is what they are trained to do.

4)Inventory.
While there are some good deals at HD,there is a lot of crap. Seriously, who is in bed with Ryobi? They must be good, because their products are crap.

5)Moving inventory.
Is it really necessary to move everything in the store around so frequently? Also, how about the simple courtesy of telling the associates. I spent a better part of an hour tracking down fire extinguishers because they moved them from electrical to hardware to seasonal to an end cap to garden. And, not a single associate in any department had a clue.

I have much more to say on each point, but I will leave it for now.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Welcome to the Home Depot Employee Blog

I've been working at Home Depot (HD) for a while, and I have my share of stories to tell. In fact, often, my stories are not unique. Everyone who works at HD has 'em. So, that is why I started this blog. I wanted to create a venue for all HD employees to vent, praise, worship, criticize, suggest, question their experiences. And, I'll start...