Good grief!
My Husband and I have shopped our local Home Depot store for, I guess 20 years or more. We have remodeled 2 home's completely and my husband has bought his material for business use (for said years) among several other projects. I noticed with our last interaction in March that things had changed for the worst. We were remodeling our bathroom to accommodate my husband's new handicaps before we could bring him home from the hospital. I was hoping it was an unfortunate fluke with particularly bad timing. We worked through it with the store, in our compromised state there really was little choice anyway. I'm thinking now though that is was not just a "miscommunication" from and among the store employees. We visited your store this past weekend to order new appliances (washer and dryer). We came first on Sunday to compare and shop. It was a struggle to get assistance and we did have to wait some time before we were helped. Our associate was nice and knowledgeable, but clearly juggling our questions along with fielding questions from other customers and employees. Things were too busy to make a final decision, so we decided to come back the next day. After briefly glancing back at the machines independently, I made my choice and was ready to simply order them for delivery. We got in line behind a nice family who shared they had been standing there waiting for over 30 minutes while the 2 associates present were each helping a customer. They mentioned that they were going to leave and just make their purchase on line. The associate stopped them and explained that it was better to order in the store to ensure everything was done correctly and the delivery would not be delayed. They waited about 10 more minutes and then left. We continued to wait for more than 30 minutes, because of what the associate had said. Finally it was our turn. We showed him exactly what we wanted and asked that it be delivered as quickly as possible. He started our purchase and then stopped to go ask a question about which stacking kit we would need. When he came back he promptly took a call from another customer while we sat in front of him waiting. When he hung up, I asked if he was going to need to wait on other people while trying to help us, he was a little defensive but assured me he could now focus on the task at hand and we completed our order. Delivery set for Friday. We received our call Thursday night confirming delivery would be from 1 to 5 on Friday as planned. I had had the laundry room shelving removed, plaster patch work completed and arranged for someone to be there with my husband (still recovering from his stroke) for the delivery. At about 4 I started checking for updates on the delivery and was assured we were still on the schedule. At 5 the message went to "your driver has been delayed, but you will still receive your delivery and you will get a call 30 minutes before they arrive". A truck did stop briefly at our drive way, but made no attempt to come in or talk with us and then just drove away. I called the store and spoke with an associate who put me on hold to "call the delivery people and see what's going on". After a 20 minute hold another associate came on the phone and said he had been asked to put me back on hold while the first associate "finished up with the customer she was helping" - I protested, I thought she was helping me! A third associated came on the phone explaining - she's multi-tasking, she's on hold with the delivery company. It was 6:30 by this point. I asked to just cancel the order and credit my card. The response was, we'll have to verify that the delivery company still has the product. Okay, what ever. A little later a very nice manager called to say they likely would not be able to reach anyone at the delivery company and that it looked like the earliest he could get the machines to us was next week, but he would call me in the morning to update me and I could go from there.
I feel like I am a disposable customer, of no significance- associates are working hard to do just enough to keep the customer strung along. Who enters into a contract with a delivery company and doesn't have an after hours number to contact when drivers will be late with deliveries? Or recourse to correct matters quickly when promises are broken? Well, that would be Home Depot
Update: I did not receive a call back and had to contact the store myself. The day manager had not read the message from the night manager apparently. Robert looked into it, no idea where the merchandise is, but he can get it to me next Thursday. No thank you. One son took off work this week to remove all the cabinets and shelving from the laundry area, another took off work to do the patch work on the walls and my daughter took off to be here yesterday from 1 to 5 to accept the delivery. So, all the time and energy I spent working with Home Depot was a waste. read more