Home Depot’s Real Problem
Notice: I’ve closed comments on this post as it’s become a Home Depot bash/support contest. If you want to continue to talk about Home Depot, there are a number of sites that focus on them – they’re just a google away.
Lately, much ado has been made about Home Depot’s treatment of its shareholders and its CEO’s compensation. The board was a no-show at the recent shareholders’ meeting; the CEO, Bob Nardelli, is making tons of dinero while the company continues to get hammered (sorry, couldn’t resist) by its competition, including Lowe’s. (Tom Peters actually predicts his pal Nardelli will never recover.)
Sure, the board seems totally clueless; Nardelli’s compensation is ridiculous; and the shareholders have every right to be miffed about the financials. But, I submit that Home Depot’s real problem is its stores. You know, the place where those little people customers give money to the company in return for goods. We don’t care how much the CEO gets paid when we’re looking for Celadon Green #345. And, we don’t want or need to know Nardelli’s “management philosophy” (He’s a big military groupie, hires a lot of Marines and Army types to run HQ and the stores. Now, I love a man in uniform, but that doesn’t help me find that green paint or an employee that can help me. HOOOAH, indeed.)
I recently visited Home Depot so I could use a gift card. Was all primed and ready to spend several hundreds of dollars (in addition to the $50 gift card) on paint, ceiling fans, and the like. Net-net, I didn’t spend a dime at Home Depot. I ended up going to Lowe’s and Samon’s. Why? Well, the Depot was dirty, cramped and cluttered. I couldn’t even find the aisle with the ceiling fans. The paint selection was far smaller than that of other stores. Nobody seemed interested in helping me and I don’t know that I blame them. The employees I did see (huddled around the end of aisles or at the checkout counter) looked terminally depressed. Overall, a dismal shopping experience.
I’d suggest Nardelli (and Wall Street) spend less time looking at numbers and more time looking at what actually makes those numbers. It’s the “simple stuff,” people. It’s the “little” sales that add up to billions. It’s the selection of paint, the looks on employees’ faces and the cleaniness of the stores that attract and keep customers. And such things aren’t handled in the board room or on a spreadsheet.
Me? The only reason I’ll go back to Home Depot is to use up that gift card – maybe I can even find something I need on the next trip!
Tags: Home Depot, marketing, marketing troubleshooting, customer service
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In my opinion, home depot pays thier employees way too much. I am all for taking care of employees, but it would help if they worked for their money.
Experience not required. I really do not need to be snowed over with someone telling me they have been in construction for 20 years and in the next sentence talk about the high school they just graduated from. Looking for good old fashion help has gone out in most retail stores but it is surely missed.
Having registers close when lines are long is just shocking, do they make so much that a little overtime when needed is going to break the store. Does it take more experience for the cashier to run the register than the designer and floor person that is putting together a 50,000.00 kitchen that may or may not be done before the next century. (but they will make commission and be paid on time). Is the word exclusive to home depot (because they get to name it) suppose to impress me because most buyers have the same intelligence as the undereducated employees.
Yes old fashion, “take care of the customer” has really been lost in corporate gains.
I have seen Home Depot go from a model of excellence to one of the worse over the last 20 years. Case and point, I was at the Home Depot in Greer, SC a year ago. I purchased $300 of floor covering. As I left the store, an employee followed me all the way to my car. He asked me if I had paid for the items in the cart. I was furious why I was asked in the first place. When I told him I had paid, he wanted to see a receipt. After reviewing the receipt, he walked off without a word. A complaint to the store manager made things worse. He said I had no cause for being upset and that I was overreacting. We have not shopped at any Home Depot since.
I live in a somewhat affluent neighborhood in Woodland Hills California where each block has crews building or improving various parts of homes along the street. We also have a Home Depot within minutes of our area. Theoretically, this store should be packed to the gills with my neighbors and construction workers, however a recent trip to my local HD proved me wrong. My story starts at about 8PM on a Friday night; as I walked into Home Depot I sensed a strange vibe. The store seemed empty while the first employee I saw stared at me with glazed over eyes as I mouthed a tepid hello. I had a fairly sizeable list of small items to buy so I was glad to see the store was open until 10PM. I grabbed a cart and started shopping, within minutes I hit paydirt as I came upon the light bulb section. The prices are fair, so I grabbed my items and continued my trek.
I won’t bore you with the rest of the items I was buying however I was a little frustrated at the lack of signs indicating what each isle contained. Of course they have their giant over head signs telling you this section is “Plumbing”, “Hardware”, etc.. but I wondered why they didn’t copy the major grocery stores way of breaking down the big sections with subsection signs. Without better road marks, shoppers tend to wonder. Do you think HD does this on purpose to create more impulse buys? Anyways, as I said earlier, the store was pretty empty but I did see a couple of employees keeping busy. As a matter of fact one guy actually came up to me and asked if I needed help. He knew where everything I needed was and actually offered his opinon on product value. I asked him why the store was so empty and he indicated it was an ongoing problem. Anyways, I loaded my cart and proceeded to check out. I expected at least a couple of cashiers to be waiting and I thought I’d be done lickity split. Oh well, best laid plans! Not a cashiering station was open, only the self checkout.
Now I understand that firms want to save money on costs and employees are your biggest cost when running a large company, however making us do self checkout versus having a choice is not acceptable. A few people ahead of me had problems with the self checkout machine and dropped their goods and left mumbling four letter words. The worst part was the people with me in line were all complaining and I sensed a mini riot about to happen. While this was going on, a few useless employees stood around with more blank stares. Not one made a move to pacify us or call a manager to help quell the growing disgust from the people waiting to give HD our money. As a matter of fact, I didn’t see anyone who resembled a manager anywhere in site. My guess was he or she was hiding, afraid to fact the small crowd of unhappy shoppers. When it was my turn to check out, another unhappy employee decided to open up a register and beckoned me over her way. I presented my items for check out while the lady behind me started complaining to my cashier. She asked why don’t you hire more people etc… The unbeliveable response from the cashier was, “nobobdy wants to work here!” Our area is filled with schools. I guarantee you that HD could fill as many spots as they wanted to with the available labor pool in our area. As I handed the cashier my card she asked debit or credit, I said, “it’s a debit card”, and she responded are you sure? I wanted to say, “No I’m guessing, but I kept my cool and repeated, yes it’s a debit card.” Anyways, the last straw that made me post to this blog was her comment when she handed me my receipt. It wasn’t thank you, have a good night, or any other pleasantry that customer service people should be taught. It was, here you go! At that point I should have asked for a manager to provide a little consulting on how to improve his stores performance and enable him or her to keep their job. However, from the lack of employee care (except for the guy who helped me in the aisles), to the invisibility of anyone who resembled a manager, I figured this store was in trouble and I’d better get home and enjoy life unlike my friends at the local Home Depot.
To recap; I understand that stores won’t have a full staff on a Friday night, however I do believe that managers need to teach their employees how to take action when they sense problems. We have a local Loews but AMEX doesn’t offer gift cards to Loews, so I’m stuck with this Home Depot and their employees bad attitude.
[...] Here’s what Home Depot wants to do – improve its operations in order to drive better cash flow through its supply chain. But is that Home Depot’s problem? Like I have said before, I have not done a comprehensive survey of customer attitudes to Home Depot. So I do the next best thing i.e. stick my thumb in the air and ascertain the direction of the wind. And which way does that blow? 1. Home Depot’s Real Problem Here’s what she recounted as her Home Depot experience: I recently visited Home Depot so I could use a gift card. Was all primed and ready to spend several hundreds of dollars (in addition to the $50 gift card) on paint, ceiling fans, and the like. Net-net, I didn’t spend a dime at Home Depot. I ended up going to Lowe’s and Samon’s. Why? Well, the Depot was dirty, cramped and cluttered. I couldn’t even find the aisle with the ceiling fans. The paint selection was far smaller than that of other stores. Nobody seemed interested in helping me and I don’t know that I blame them. The employees I did see (huddled around the end of aisles or at the checkout counter) looked terminally depressed. Overall, a dismal shopping experience. [...]
Man talk about company bashing. Geesh. Hate to say this folks but I have experienced lousy customer service almost everywhere I go to attempt to alleviate the burden of hard earned Grants and Washingtons weighing down my stride. Costumer service is what people are looking for, do they recieve it? What happens when you have a problem with your PC and call tech support? You get half broken English from Calcutta or somewhere in the Philipines.
I am stay at home papa after 12 years, combined agreement it was my turn to raise a future customer service associate. How about the last time you went to your car insurance provider to see the actuall agent and the gals at the counter tell you they are in meeting and your can hear someone talking about their golf game? In my former life I was a an ASE certified master auto tech and what I did peoples lives relied on it. Customer service is not something that can be taught. It is part empathy, part humility with a smidgen of knowledge and a portion of humanity and a majority of pride. I have seen some of the most atroshish service from contractors.
To them taking your money for service is like they are doing you a favor. I myself take pride in what I do. I have worked for lousy wages, no benies and mega over time. It sucks because the folks with the so called good paying jobs look down on the lil folk. I can name numerous national and global chains that are totally lacking in any type of customer service and the first issue adapted industry wide is the tele-rep auto mation system. When is the last time you got to speak with a warm body other than needing to pay a bill? Even then at times it’s the computer.
Recently I went back to school to earn a BS degree and I can atest to the total lack of mastery of the ability to communicate affectively, even at the University level. This is a problem. If a person them selves can not utter more than a completed mutterance of 2-3 words formatting in a reply customer service will be non-existant regardless of the mastery of other skills. If they can’t speak they are deemed rude. However ignorance is not an excuse. We are all ignorant in our own faults and to various applicalbe ineptitudes.
What type of person would I prefer to speak with at a hardware store? Interesting proposal. One that makes the visit seem to be on a personal level? Or perhaps with one who addresses me as a total incompatent by exasberating me with their limitless knowledge? Returning to school was something I decided in hopeful persiut of a new carrer path. Will that happen? I don’t know. What would a perspective employer be more concerned with? My previous years of automotive knowledge or my 4.0 GPA?
I am trying to change my direction in life and where that direction leads I have no foresight. However after applying, online even, with a fairly new company in our little corner of this marble they called me a short time later. They didn’t center on the recent going on 12 years lack of employment. I have worked for both large companies and small and yes even owned my own place. The common fact is people are smarter today, They know what they want and they want it now and they want for the absolute lowest price going, even if that price was one 3 months back and a sale to boot. They want that price.
At any rate returning to the work force will be a journey and where that journey goes I have no idea. Lousy hours, lousy pay, more work for less money and less time to do it, no benefits dealing with rude arrogant people part of the job. Makes me wonder if they are like that at their place of employment? Now to the best part of all. The place that called me was HD and I welcome the oppurtunity to go back to work. After all who would hire a soon to graduate Magna Cum Laude, former grease monkey, father of three into a good paying rewarding position with a key to the executive head? Remember when you bash customer service think of how you are to the people where you work.
[...] No, not mine – Home Depot’s. My past Home Depot posts (here, here and here) really hit a nerve. People hate that place with the heat of a thousand suns – and that’s the employees! [...]