The Home Depot — Local services in Saugus

I thought home depot was a great national wide company with good supplies, although someone said their customer service was not good, but I was completely wrong! For our new home improvement project, we purchased almost 10K products from home depot, either online or from local stores, including over 5K hardwood floors on 7/9. It was set up for home delivery Sat 7/13, 6am – 8 pm. Until late Friday evening, no phone calls from home depot so I called to check the delivery schedule. Their customer service said everything’s fine and on schedule. Hence, we spent a few hours waiting on Sat but no one called nor showed up, so we called the local store and was told their system hadn’t had the correct information when I put my order (they actually ran out of stock already). They already sent my order to another store (which we later found didn’t have that many in stock either). Per the notes in their system, their customer services supposed to call us for this change, but they didn’t. This’s just the beginning of our nightmare. We went to another local store, they said they have that product in stock but not as many as we need, but they found a brother store which has the remaining ones. They set up the same day delivery after a 3-hour long waiting and checking. However, when the delivery crew reached our house, we found 1/3 of the hardwood floor was in a different color, and that’s all what they have...We called two other home depot stores. They promised to call back but never did. The delivery crew left 16 boxes of hardwood floor in our house and took the remaining away… As a result, we had to go back to the local store again…. Another round of hours of conversations… finally when we got really exhausted (after spending almost 8 hours at home depot) we asked for a refund. Guess what, we were told that we had to take the hardwood floor back on our own cost, or we had to take another day off work so that they can pick up at our house, another day off work because of their error, no apologies or compensations… Thanks for home depot! All we got is an almost 10-day delay in our home improvement project, and we need to shop around for the hardwood floor again, and need to rearrange our contractors schedule, plus we need to pay additional rent and storage cost for furniture. NEVER BUY ANYTHING CRITICAL FROM...

A lot of things are going wrong in this store while other HD stores in the area are doing everything else right.

Went to exchange a tool that had broken on the first use, preemptively checked the tool section where it commonly was, but this time it wasn't. I picked up a pair of gloves I planned to buy. I also had a clearance item I was interested in. The broken tool was listed online at "41 in-stock" -The clearance item had at least "10 in-stock" in different sizes Nobody could locate my tool - or the pallet it was on in the back- which is flooding the shelves of locations like Everett, Reading, and even Somerville. My clearance items were clearly out of stock, but the website was not updated to reflect store inventory accurately. I was waiting to possibly pick up something for a family member, so waiting around for a bit didn't bother me... After being in the store almost 30 minutes, after I was advised to "try another store," I went to check out my gloves. There was probably 1 checkout attendant at a pretty busy time for the store and chip card wasn't working, as the registers here have no option for tap. I didn't feel like getting upset or making anyone else's busy life any busier so I left with just the tool I brought in to exchange.

On my way home, I decided to call the customer service to speak with a Manager, like a good Karen. The checkout phones that answer first are great and get me where I need to be going quickly, but whatever old ass phone they're using in the back is always my problem: This is in an area 15 minutes from Boston with plenty of cell coverage. They can never understand me enough to help me with anything, and it's completely due to the horrible quality phones the Managers use that need to be replaced. Like literally just a corded handset is less than $40 for a good, modern one; OR, they have the Manager's phone is connected to the terrible store Wi-Fi. I'm not sure that anyone there would even know how to check that(?).

Ultimately, I thought I could save a couple of dollars on my tool exchange, but I guess we're just better off shipping it back and getting what we need without people, right? Seems like the only thing this store is good for is taking a good bowel movement on...

Another Update for April 2023 below:

Tony is a MASTER at lawn care. I have been seeing progress with my lawn and when I have a question, Tony is there to help me through it all. I’ve been back three times over the last month and I specifically go when I know Tony will be there. Appreciate all the help! He goes the extra mile!

Review from April 2023: Well, I went back to Home Depot yesterday for a couple reasons: soil for raised beds and more lawn care. I searched for Tony and to my delight he was there caring for indoor plants. This man is a well of knowledge, is exceptionally generous in explaining everything and answering every last question I have, and is willing to go above and beyond to make sure I leave feeling confident that I’ll be able to take the supplies I just purchased and optimally use them for my Home Improvement. He also is a team player and makes his team members feel awesome which makes the whole experience so uplifting. Home Depot regional and Corporate, you should 100% out Tony in a TV ad. Run a whole campaign around the employees across the country who make a difference in your stores. What a gem he is!

Review from August 2022: Just came back from this store after a long day of people not doing their jobs or being helpful. I walked into Home Depot and met Anna who was like a Home Depot angel of mercy. Anna knew exactly what I needed to do to plant seed for my lawn, showed me everything I needed, and went the extra mile to make me feel confident that I can do this on my own....