My husband and I recently completed a house project that involved a small amount of DIY and required more than a few trips to our local Home Depot. Despite knowing the layout of the store well enough, I was wasting way too much time wandering the aisles and perusing all of my options. So to save time, my sanity and a little shoe leather, I opted to buy some fancy light bulbs at HomeDepot.com, pick them up at the service desk of my local store and trust that whatever I walked out with would be just fine.
So I paid for the light bulbs online, printed out the e-mail confirmation that had my name and order number on it, drove to Home Depot over my lunch hour, walked up to the customer service counter and waited in line. I won’t bore everyone with the details but suffice it to say I waited a long time only to be met with a service representative who seemed genuinely confused by the whole process and then had even more difficulty locating my items. By the time I got out of there, it surely would’ve been more efficient had I wandered the aisles weighing my options and paid for them myself at the self-checkout. And I can weigh my options for a long time, guys.
I was unimpressed. And when Home Depot e-mailed me asking about my experience, I said so, in no uncertain terms. I even identified the befuddled employee by name and explained that the pay-online-pick-up-in-store model only works if it’s a time-saver – not if it’s a time-suck.
So imagine my surprise when I got a call the next week from Ryan, the store manager for my local Home Depot, asking me to walk through exactly what happened with my transaction, why I chose the option and what it would take for me to try it again. After doing that, I also explained to him that it isn’t a Home Depot-specific problem; I had similarly-disappointing experiences at Walmart and Toys“R”Us.
But you know what? Home Depot is the only one that called and followed up with me to apologize – which was nice but not really necessary – and to encourage me to continue using the service again after the employees are retrained. Ryan even asked me to let him know, right then and there in the store, how it goes the next time.
And I will! I probably wouldn’t have, had Ryan not called to follow up and ask for my continued patronage of the service, but now Home Depot is the next place I’ll be trying this. For the record, Walmart sent a follow-up survey via e-mail asking about my experience; Toys“R”Us did nothing.
I think the lesson here is a simple one: Gathering customer feedback is good. Doing something with it is better.
Or maybe the lesson is simply that I should take the hint and stop trying to pay online and pick up in store.
Just kidding, Ryan!