I realize these are trying times for us all. And no one goes to Home Depot because of the excellent customer service, but I surely don't go there to be disrespected by employees. Gig Harbor Home Depot management may want to reconsider. Lots.
My experience today was of incompetence, downright rudeness, non existent helpfulness, extremely poorly training in customer service and downright badly done website for online purchasing.
Beginning with corralling customers in a line at the door. And the security guy. Really? Got to watch out for those rouge customers! What part of not creating crowds, do you not understand? When I asked, I was given some story that made no sense about corona-virus, but when I questioned an employee in private, they said they were protecting their employees. That's pretty obvious because they clearly don't care about their customers potential exposure to the virus. When I was finally allowed to enter, there were so few customers in every aisle I looked down that I swore I heard an echo! I've never seen any Home Depot, not in WA, Idaho, Montana, etc., so empty.
I had decided to use Home Depot's online site to make my purchases and make it easier on everyone. Last night I ordered only things that were,"In stock, in the store", and paid with a card. I used their curbside option as I'd used it a couple of weeks ago and it took them only a few hours to have it ready. Reasonable.
I had called in this morning because I'd heard nothing back by 10 AM. A girl told me they didn't have my order ready yet. I took the opportunity to cancel one item and get a different size. She told me that I had to cancel the whole order, to make any changes, so I did and then she turns around and tells me (not a minute later) that I could have canceled the order on the one item, instead of doing it all again. What?! So I completed the whole order and paid, again.
By 0430 this afternoon still nothing from Home Depot so I called and the girl told me they were backed up. I said I would head over as I needed the items purchased. She said I would have to get them myself and then come to the customer service area. That's ok. I went into the store, waited in the banned gathering and when I went to get the items I'd purchased, one of them was nowhere to be found. I went to the customer service area and waited another 25 minutes in a banned gathering. When I finally got to the register and tried to explain my dilemma, making a joke about how my order had probably been ignored as the item was not even in the store, this red haired, heavy set woman became extremely defensive and told me that, "You are not the only person".... Really? Thank you for enlightening me, but what does that have to do with my purchasing items that weren't, "available in the store", . She continued on spewing out numbers of orders they'd had and all of the customers...! Here's a customer with a valid reason for being upset and that's what you tell them? Extremely bad customer service skills. Finally, she explained that the online ordering updates every 48 hours. What?! Then how does Home Depot know if something is in the store or not? They don't, she tells me acting like I'm unreasonable to expect that thing that I paid for, and that the online site that said, "Available in the Gig Harbor store", to be available. Now my money is not only tied up in the first order cancellation that I was incorrectly told to do, it's tied up in a second. She finally made a helpful decision by simply handling it - which she should have done in the beginning. This tells me that she must be some kind of manager, as she didn't make any transactions and I was permitted to take two smaller quantities to make up for the one that wasn't there. Way too late to redeem herself, but thanks? I should be billing Home Depot for all my wasted time as they are responsible. Just really poor all the way around. read more