The Home Depot — Local services in College Park

Summary: Use other services when you can. When you can't, know what you're in for. Do your own research for actual DIY advice most of the time. Don't expect stellar customer service.

This is a super convenient location for us, so we keep begrudgingly going back, but our customer service experiences have been so consistently bad that we wish we could find somewhere else.

If you are a pro who knows what you need in the store, you'll be fine. If you're a pro who is doing a contracting project through Home Depot, add plenty of time for the headaches of delayed orders, orders delivered at the wrong times, broken or incorrect items arriving instead of what you ordered. We didn't learn our lesson and did 3 projects this way. Similar problems each time. We now pay more for contractors that come referred to us by friends, even if it takes longer to book them. We now try to find anywhere else to work with for big projects. Even if it's more expensive or a little farther away, it saves so much time and frustration later, that it's worth it when we can.

For smaller DIY projects, if you are an amateur like me you can sometimes get good advice from someone at the their Pro Desk, if they know about your particular issue. Otherwise, it's important to realize that the employees are retail employees. They don't have experience or training in DIY, and often don't know what products they have in the stored. If you have questions, ask in online forums or handy friends, don't rely on in-store advice.

Lastly, if a problem or question on a product comes up, know that customer service folks often don't answer the phone and aren't very familiar with the products. I recommend using online chat support instead, though I'm not sure if those representatives have more training than the in-store employees. They tend to be more responsive though.

For in-store Customer Service, we've received helpful service from the service desk when we had a simple return. For anything less standard, we usually have to find the solution ourselves. Everyone's been nice, just not super helpful.

As just one example, something we ordered online to be delivered in-store arrived broken. Employees didn't check the item (even though we later saw that online reviews mentioned it sometimes breaks in shipment). We noticed it was broken and brought it back. The solution first offered was that they could order it again (which we had said didn't work for our timeline anyway), but they "couldn't guarantee it wouldn't arrive broken again". O.o They sent us to check the shelves to see if the item was in stock even tho the system said it wasn't. We couldn't find it, so we finally came back to the desk and asked if other stores might have it? Then they looked that up. A store 10 min away did have it, but was 12min from closing time by then. We raced over and got the item. The employees there were helpful, but annoyed that we insisted they open the box before we took it home, to ensure we didn't get another broken item. So, it's not that we didn't get to a solution eventually, but it tends to take multiple calls/visits and hours of...

What a TERRIBLE experience.

I looked up online exactly what I needed to order. Called Home Depot, Pressed the number to be connected with the Bathroom section, and some one picks up. I state that I would like to make an order. She says ok and put me back on Hold.... 12 minutes later I hung up. Currently I am on hold again, I have called back to speak with a customer service rep.

After 4 minutes, the customer service rep has finally picked up. She verifies that they have the product I am trying to order. And puts me on hold again for some unknown reason.

Still on hold, I can her the customer service rep in the back ground asking out loud "how do you enter a hyphen?" She asked for my email address and it has a hyphen in it, I tried to tell her where it was but she was too busy putting me on hold again.

Maybe Home Depot could invest in a bit of Training for its employees? Just a thought. Still on the phone.... 30 mins now.

Silence on the phone now... still just waiting. Wow! more than a half hour.

Now she tells me to fill in these blanks in her computer program she needs numbers, I suggest 123, OH MY GOD, This experience is painful!

Ok just got fed up... total time on the phone is 36 minutes and I've asked to speak with a manager.

Guess what... I'm on hold.

NEVER EVER CALL THIS STORE!

I'm shocked that I am on the phone with a company trying to make a purchase from them, that they have and THIS IS THE WAY A PAYING CUSTOMER IS TREATED. I cannot imagine what it would be like if I had any questions, I mean I even called them with the product numbers so they didn't have to help me locate the type of item.

Still on hold by the way. WE ARE AT 40 minutes. hung up.

will never make that...

If this place was hit by a meteorite I would be ok with a giant gaping hole next to bestbuy/shoppers. It would really make the college park area a lot better. The workers here are the salt of the earth. I was waiting in line and let an old lady go ahead past me. She tried to return something and the home depot worker told her she couldn't return because she didn't have the receipt, in a harsh tone. The poor old lady said she lived alone and couldn't find it. The worker turned her away and the old lady walked away with tears in her eyes. As I watched the poor lady's tears fall down her face into her face mask I stepped in and approached the worker who had piercing eyes and demanded to speak to a manager. The manager was hiding behind a counter and told the worker to give me whatever I was asking for. I demanded they treat the old lady with respect and validate her return. She said "ok whatever sir". I told the lady to come back and they honored her return. The poor lady thanked me and said that ever since her husband passed away she has has a hard time with day to day activities especially at THIS home depot and I confirmed with her as well. Then when it was my turn they tried to the same thing!!!!! I don't blame the workers here but upper management are treating them like slaves and tell them to deny deny and deny even more. This place needs to get...