The Home Depot — Local services in New Hartford

This goes down as probably the most frustrating experience I’ve ever had in retail. Every free associate was a lady who had to “go find someone to get that for you” for a box of plant nutrients that said on the side it weighed something like 5 pounds!! I’m familiar with your stores and the wait times so just for fun I walked around figuring I might speed up the process since most of the associates “looking” either call overburdened 1 man departments then give up when the guy serving 4 customers at once doesn’t answer. Confirming what I already knew from experience every male associate I saw was serving a customer with a couple waiting behind as well as cutting lumber, loading things into people’s cars, etc.. I’m familiar with hiring practices so I know they had to agree to having a set amount physical capabilities and I’m sure your question wasn’t “can you carry anything up to 5 lbs?” And I’m also sure it violates some sort of policy to make your male associates do any and all physical or machine labor.

On top of this level of struggle for them to get me a box off a 10 foot shelf I also needed a pallet of goods brought down by a machine and it ended up being the same exact routine except this time it was all the free associates looking for “someone to operate the machine”. It makes no sense to me that you’d let literally half of your work force shirk any remotely physical activity as well as shirking the training for any sort of machine. If you are going to allow them to provide no help for people who know what they want then maybe you should put them im sales positions behind a desk so people like me don’t spend 2 hours of my time waiting for a guy to come over to carry down a 5 lb box and also forklift down a pallet so I can get a few items. A guy I saw helping several customers by himself after the associates went looking for help with the 5 lb box..if you want people to come back to your store you either need to hire more associates who are willing to actually do anything but the bare minimum or actually hold some of your female associates to learning a machine or something. There’s no reason that people I’m almost positive are full timers because I always see them have 0 ability to actually help a customer outside of telling us things we can...

I’m not usually a person that writes reviews, but enough is enough. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars at this Home Depot and their service just gets worse and worse. The other night I came in because I needed to replace a bedroom door, unfortunately the size I needed was on the second shelf so I needed help getting it down. After searching the store I finally find a staff member, ask him for assistance with the door he reply’s he has to find someone that can operate the lift. After an hour of waiting in the same isle while multiple employees walk by not asking if I needed help. Seeing someone stand in an isle looking around I would think they would do their job or at least for loss prevention sake they would check the situation but no. Then today I went into the store to pick up a wood stove I order online. The employee at the desk said it would be awhile because they had to find someone to get the order down but to sign for the pickup to wrap the transaction up, even though I hadn’t seen the item and its condition. After waiting 20 mins an employee came with the stove on a pallet jack and said the me and my girlfriend to bring the car to the other end of the store to have someone load it and for one of us to bring the pallet jack down and ask them to get someone. First off I think it is a company policy that only employees can use the pallet jack, it is a liability. Also what horrible customer service handing off your job to the customer to figure it out. It kills me that being a person doing a renovation of their home only has a very few places to go to get the odds and ends they need to complete the job and these companies take edvantage of it. I know this review won’t change what happened but I hope it gets the word out there of the experience happening...

I went when it was a little busy. I wanted to buy appliances and already knew which ones I wanted. There were 4 associates in the appliance section. 2 were helping 1 customer, 1 was helping 1 customer, and 1 was on the phone. I waited for 5-10 minutes at the appliance I wanted in view of the 3 associates helping customers. Never a ma'am I'll be right with you or any acknowledgement. I left to get a faucet I wanted to buy and when I came back, I noticed an associate on the phone. I stood 2 cubicles behind her and waited. She turned around after a minute and said, "I'm on the phone." I told her okay. She asked what I needed help with and I told her I wanted to buy appliances, she said to go get help from another associate, I told her they were busy, and she just shrugged. I walked away and waited another 5-10 minutes while the associates were talking to the customers. I just took pictures of what I wanted and left.

I bought the faucet and went outside the store. I had my receipt in the straps of the faucet and decided to check out the outdoor garden. I walked in from the outside and made a comment to the cashier when she sneezed. I browsed the Christmas trees in the front for a couple of minutes. I went to leave and the same cashier I spoke to on my way in, asked to see the receipt for my faucet. I told her I just walked in a couple of minutes ago from the outside of the store. She just looked at me. I told her the receipt was on the box, which was in her view the whole time, and left. The people here will initiate unhelpful commentary or no commentary at all, but hard to find help.

I went to Manny's Appliances in Canton the same day. Got immediate service, found the exact items I wanted, and got them for $200 less. Moral of the story: IT'S BETTER TO...