"The foundation of Office Depot's culture is based on our core values: Integrity, Accountability Innovation, Teamwork and Respect. These values guide our decision making and how we act as a company. At Office Depot, we strive to conduct ourselves and our business with uncompromising honesty and integrity. We make this commitment on a global scale to our customers, business partners, associated and shareholders because it is the right thing to do."
I just wanted to put this here to remind this particular Office Depot specifically the managers Jake and Donna because none of these values were exhibited on my visit Saturday 3/9/19.
I don't usually deal with store staff because we primarily order online for my work. I had some ink that we found cleaning our supply closet which we don't have the printer for so I was going to see about trying to return it. I tracked down all of the receipts and made my way to the local Office Depot.
Upon entering I was happily greeted by the associate (I didn't catch his name) but he was friendly and eager to help. I brought my bag full of unopened, unexpired printer ink with receipts that granted, were almost a year old but I wasn't expecting cash I just wanted to get an account credit since I will obviously just end up buying plenty more from the company. As well as the ink can easily be resold. I figured it doesn't hurt to ask.
As soon as Jake the manager was called over he immediately said there was nothing that he could do. He didn't attempt anything, he didn't call on my behalf even though there were almost no other customers in the store, none waiting in line and 3 other associates who could help if there were. He didn't bother to look into the account to see we are valued customers nor did I feel like anything but a bother to him. He told me to call the online customer service so that is what I did.
The associate on the phone helped me process the returns and create shipping labels for all 4 ink orders, she was patient and kind. I have already wrote her a good review but I wanted to make sure I informed Office Depot of my poor customer service experience in store.
At this time I was still outside of Office Depot so I figured I could check if they have some boxes I could use to ship. I worked at Best Buy for 10 years and we always had a compactor full of broken down boxes.
This time when I entered I saw the cashier from before say something to the manager Donna and he walked away avoiding me. Understandable, he was probably thinking I was coming to complain or something. So that left Donna. Donna asked if she could help me. I let her know online was taking care of my returns and I just needed a couple boxes if she had some I could use. She quickly responded "no". That was it. Like I said I worked customer service so I was not rude in any single one of these interactions. I was respectful, I was nice and just asking for help. I started to walk out of the store when I see a mountain of empty cardboard boxes behind the checkout. I turned around and said "what about these ones that aren't being used" and pointed at them. She walked up and said "Oh, I didn't know these were here".
She gave me 4 of them and I left the store. I walked out not feeling like anyone there even made the smallest effort to help me. They only told me what they couldn't do, offered no solution and didn't attempt to go the extra mile in any way.
This is why your stores are practically empty whenever I visit one. If a computer is offering better customer service than your store associates I can see why. You might need to retrain your associates and managers so they are living by your core values. This store did not try to earn my business and I hope that in the future I won't have to visit one again especially not this location. read more
