The Home Depot — Local services in Bellevue

If Google allowed fractional stars in reviews, this review of the Bellevue Home Depot would be a 2.5.

So few things in life are truly binary—we live in a world where shades of gray reign supreme. This Home Depot, however, is a notable exception.

In over year and a half of living in Bellevue, I’ve shopped here many, many times. I’ve gone in store to shop, and ordered online to collect at the store.

Every time, my experience is either stellar, or leaves me livid and cursing the fact that I live on the west coast, and the Home Depot national customer complaint line closed hours previous to my visit.

Let’s start with the positive: the store is ALWAYS clean, and orderly, as far as can be reasonably expected for a hardware store. The store is in a safe area of town, and their site reflects that—I’ve never felt unsafe walking in the parking lot alone after dark. The aisles and bays are all clearly marked, which makes it easy to find the product you’re looking for, especially if you pre-identified the in-store location online. Other Home Depot’s I’ve visited frequently don’t have the bays labeled, so it’s nice this place does.

Now, the bad—staffing. The whole store seems to run on 40% of the staff needed at any given time. When I’d pick up online orders between 4-6 pm (on week days), I could expect to wait about 20-40 minutes for an associate to bring my order to my car. More often than not, after checking in on the app for pickup, I’d have to call the store and ask if anyone’s going to bring me my order. The associates I talked to in these instances are always very apologetic and customer-oriented, but it’s abundantly clear that they’re overworked.

Picking up an order between 9-11 a.m. was met with the exact same outcome.

So, I changed tactics—in-store shopping only to avoid delays. My most recent visit was at 11:45 a.m., on a Tuesday. I grabbed the three (3) small items I needed and went to check out.

Of the 10+ registers, and 4-6 self-checkout lanes, only 2 registers with associates were open—and one of those was the lane designated for the “Pro’s” (e.g. contractors, tradesmen, etc). So, one lane for plebe customers, such as myself. No matter, I’m a millennial, I live for self-checkout.

Well, the queue for the self-checkout area was already 10 customers deep when I got in line. The customers already at the kiosk were all having a rough time checking themselves out—at one point, every single station was flagging for an associate to come further the transaction. That one poor associate assigned to self-checkout duty was overloaded, and being monopolized by one family. The associate who was working the only register actually had to pause her queue to try to help out the self-checkout folks, but 2 associates are poorly matched against that many irritated, waiting customers.

As I’m witnessing this comedy of errors unfold (and, admittedly, allowing myself to get ticked off), another employee came moseying down the aisle. He surveyed the backlog of waiting customers (now stacked 15 deep), looked over at the 2 floundering associates, and remarked “hm I wonder who’s supposed to be over here,” and sauntered off! And before you judge me for my scathing remarks, let me tell you, this guy was absolutely in a “team lead” or “floor manager” role, and it wasn’t the first negative observation I’ve had of him. You see the front is slammed, and you don’t jump on a register, or hustle an associate from another department to provide temporary relief? C’mon.

Of that trip, I spent 30 minutes in the store—4 finding what I needed, 25 waiting in line, and 1 checking myself out. Before any lunchtime rush. On a Tuesday.

Summary: when you’re fortunate enough to actually get an associate, they’re rock stars. Too bad you’ll spend 80% of your time there waiting to talk to one, if you don’t get fed up and take your business to Lowe’s...

They have very good inventory ,and that is the only best consistent factor about HD. Most of the time they have what is needed.and we appreciate that very much, But their customer service is not good., Actually sometimes it is terrible.

And those employees in different shifts who work in plumbing department are MIA & have grumpy & rude attitude most of the time, not Willing to help customers.

Update09.2022 Jerry in plumbing dept. Has a good customer service

So best is to search for what you need& find it on HD app , and for advice how to install, or how to use , it is better find other ways , but don't ask home Depot employees ( they don't know, or not willing to help) . You are lucky if you find a nice employees who is willing to help, and know how.

Electrical department guys most of the time missing even in different shifts

Hardware dept. guys are nicer if you can find one.

And most of HD cashiers I really don't know where they find them. They don't represent HD in a good way, or HD spirit.

They give customers the feeling that they don't care weather customers buy, or not buy. It is the same for them. They are not welcoming .They are clueless, slow moving, not customer service oriented, not customer satisfaction goaled, sometimes you say to yourself, oooh(**) how come I ended up with this cashier. At the same time ,you get to ask your self, if these people don't like their job,or their place of employment then why they work here @ the home depot. All they are doing they are not contributing to make home depot better, and they bring their negativity into Home Depot. and also making customers don't like shopping here.

Return counters workers are different Update 09.2022 observed two return casheirs give very hard times to two return customers at the same time. It took both casheirs each about 15 to 25 minutes to return the items to 2 separate different customers while we wait in line. Heard some of their questions. I swear they were almost like interrogation to those nice customers WOW. 05/2023 H.D. replaced one bad return casheir pair with a worse return casheir pair. From bad to worse( in every category) here is the photos of the new pair. If you want to know what a terrible return experience is then let this pair serve you. You feel H.D. is desperate in hiring these people, or H.D. had lowered their hiring standards.

Update01,2,3,4, 5.2023 Noticed more available HD helpful employees in many dept. Justin (J.E.T) in Electrical dept will go the extra mile to help customers. Thank you

Most Employees are so overwhelmed, and not willing to help.

HD phone customer service is like run around , and get tied up on the phone for so long , and then at the end , just get no where.

Their paint brand Behr is not really good, it is so thin, and it drips easily, and you have to apply several coats to get good coverage, it takes little longer to dry .it is not durable , it does not stick well, peels off after short while,unless you choose the most expensive top level ,but then you are spending so much money unnecessary. When you can choose another brand that performs much better,and do real well such as Valspar

They also have truck,and tool rental .and customer service in this department is...

I'm really frustrated.

I had ordered a washer/dryer combo about two years ago and the appliance delivery and install was a pain. It took 3 trips for the delivery folk to come out and install the washer and dryer at the end of which, I had to end up installing it myself. The first time around, the delivery people told me I couldn't install the units stacked because of a platform where the old units were sitting. I ended up calling a handyman to remove the platform which costed time and money. After that, they came out once again and said that the floor had to be flush and slick so they could slide the unit in. The floor was flush and there was vinyl that I had installed after the platform was removed. I installed a divider between the floors before they came the next time. The final time they came out, the complaint was that the dryer cord they had brought was too short and they couldn't install a longer one as per code and there was nothing that could be done.

I ended up buying a longer cord, installing it myself, attaching the dryer vent and pushing the unit in. All the work the delivery team was supposed to do but didn't. Not to mention, carry the appliances in from the garage. All of this trouble could have been saved if the delivery team had just indicated all these issues from the beginning and/or the Home Depot had told us things to make sure before buying.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and we are looking for kitchen appliances. We browsed around and found Home Depot to offer the most compelling package. I was leery this time around due to our previous experience but the rep at the Home Depot assured us that the incident before was an exception rather than the rule.

We ordered our appliances through Home Depot last week. This time around is strictly worse than before. Our fridge could not be installed due to a missing stop valve behind the fridge. The delivery team left the fridge in our garage so it's "easier" next time they come. The fridge is still in it's packaging and upon our further inspection after the team left, we find a large dent on the side. A sight not directly visible due to packaging. Now we are waiting on a call from Samsung for a redelivery and need to coordinate that with the delivery team. The plumber came today and informed us that the dishwasher is a slightly taller than what can fit in our space. He ensured us that he will file an installation exception and since the install is within 24 hours, we will get a full refund and can pick out a replacement. I called Home Depot and the rep tells me that Samsung has no such policy and after chatting with the Samsung rep, Samsung is saying that we are having "buyers remorse" after buying the dishwasher and will have to pay a restocking fee of 15% of the cost of dishwasher.

Not only, have we wasted a lot of time playing phone tag with the delivery company, Home Depot, Samsung and the plumbers they contract out - but are now faced with having to pay a restocking fee because Samsung claims that we are having "buyer's remorse".

This has been a...