The Home Depot — Local services in Worcester

Brace yourself. What you are about to read is the harrowing story of the most astounding customer service experience of my young life.

It begins with an order placed online for five items too large for me to pick up in store. Delivery by truck was set for four days later.

Delivery day finally comes. My order is delivered while I'm not home. When I check my order status online, it shows as delivered with a photo "proving" my items were delivered. What was dropped off at my house, which has my last name on it on a big sign, was so obviously not my order I couldn't believe it. The last name on the delivered items wasn't even close to my name on the big sign in front of my house. The items delivered were so different from my order that it had to be either pure carelessness or negligence that they were dropped off here.

I call the store and explain that there's been a mistake. "We'll fix it!" the Home Depot call center employee exclaims. A second truck is scheduled to remove the incorrectly delivered items and deliver the ones I ordered. The second truck arrives, removes the incorrect items, and makes another drop off. What's in this second drop off you ask? Three out of five of the items I ordered, a fourth item which is obviously the wrong version of the item I ordered, and no fifth item which is the largest of the entire order. How does this happen? Genuinely not trying to be rude, but can these people even read? You select the right items in the store. You pack the right items under the right name to go to a specific address. Then you drop them off at that address. Pizza guys do this with 99% accuracy day after day. So, pray tell, how has Home Depot possibly fumbled this so badly?

So here I am. With three of five correct items, a wrong fourth item, and no fifth item. I call Home Depot. Again. They explain that even though they've totally bungled my order, the correct items can't be delivered until three days later, but somehow they can take the incorrect fourth item back on a truck the next day. The store says I'll hear back Monday with a plan to rectify the situation. So they send a THIRD truck to my house, without the right fourth item or any of missing item 5. They remove wrong fourth item.

Monday rolls around and I hear back from the store. Oh wait. No I don't. They don't call me on Monday with a plan like they said they would. When I don't hear back by WEDNESDAY I call them to sit on hold and get bounced between store associates for another hour. I get an employee on the phone who says yes, we can have your items out to you today. So she sends a third party vehicle out to make the delivery. The guy arrives with the correct item four and item five. But wait! Did you expect this ordeal to end now? No no. Item 4 is the right version this time, but it's busted. The guy says he saw the busted part before he left the store and that he asked an employee if there were any others he could take. He claims they said that's the last one, so he drove out a busted item to my house for delivery. When I said I didn't want it because I obviously don't want a busted item, he says he can't take it back to the store. I say, fine, if Home Depot can't pull their heads out of their butts for 30 seconds, I'll exchange this item in person myself, even though I ordered delivery for a reason. I call the store that this busted item came from and say "your delivery guy tells me you have no more of these in your store. Your website shows you have five. Put eyes on this item in your store and tell me if it exists there". "Yes!" the employee exclaims after I've been bounced between three different employees and put on hold for half an hour. "We have three of them!" he shouts with glee into the phone.

So here I am, after a week of trying to sort this out, hours on hold with Home Depot call center and the store, and my jobs sitting around for the correct items to arrive, I still don't have everything I ordered. I am truly beside myself. There is no chance that I will ever, ever order large items to be delivered from Home...

Well, that was a journey.

I gave it four stars because in the end I got what I came for and largely customer service was very helpful. But as you read the story below, it was a wildly inconsistent ride.

I did appreciate the volume of customer support on the floor. Unlike the Shrewsbury MA store where floor support almost doesn’t exist, my story below highlights this store’s commitment to customer service, if nothing else, in sheer volume.

So I show up. The first HD member I find seems friendly enough and offers to help. Let’s call him Bass Pro Hat, because I missed his name. I am shopping for Christmas Decor. He leads me over to the section, I point out what I am looking for, he checks his machine and says it shows we have four left. So we look. At some point he says I think I saw one outside, wait right here, I’ll be right back. So I wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. At this point I am thinking this is good sign because I am waiting so long, he must of found it (its big yard decor) and he must be figuring out a way to get it down, get out front etc. But I finally decide to move to a different location, only to find him socializing with a customer service girl. So I make eye contact over the barriers to customer service and ask him - did you find it? He says no and then randomly points to another rep and says she will be more helpful because it is her department. Ok.

Turns out she was. Let’s call her super helper number one because I missed her name too. As we search again, we have a similar conversation that the inventory says four. She ultimately figures out that the only left is the display one. She then says she can get it down for me, and give me a 10% discount, it just won’t come in a box. Ok, awesome. Moments later she comes back with a ladder and a helper. Lets call her helper number one because I missed her name. I greet the helper, I try to make small talk, she just stares at me, doesn’t say a word, looks down at her machine, and walks off. It appears she is now looking for the other four the inventory claims to be in the store. Finally super helper number one is able to bring down the reindeer and the sleigh. She escorts me over to the register to make sure that I get the discount and hands me off to Brenda.

Brenda is awesome. (aka super helper number 2) She gives me different ideas on what to do with the yard decor display. Full of smiles and friendliness. I say thank you and I'm on my way.

When I get to my truck, I realize I will need ground stakes to hold down the yard decor on my lawn. So I returned to the store.

I run into Kelsey. Kelsey is awesome. (aka super helper number 3). He's hustling and trying to find exactly what I'm looking for. He's asking people left and right. He's relentless. Awesome. We run into Kevin (aka super helper number 4).

Kevin knows right away, says, yes, down aisle six, and it should be near the bungee cords. Awesome. As we are heading that way, Kelsey gets recognized by another customer obviously because of his former customer service who asks for his help. I'm like no problem. I got this. I know exactly where it is now. Thanks for your help.

As I'm walking down the aisle and looking for it, Kevin literally follows up with me and says, hey, I'll help you find it. Okay, amazing.

As we're looking for it, Kelsey returns and says, hey, I just wanted to check in to make sure you found it. And we do. So that's awesome.

So then I am on the check out aisle, and the cashier notices I am wearing a field hockey hat. He asks if I play (I'm 54 btw) and I say no. He says, oh, I didn’t know if you were another Lia Thomas because you didn’t look like a girl. If you don’t know who Lia Thomas is, she is at the center of the transgender in sports debate because she was born a male but competed for the UPenn Women’s swim team.

Anyway, four stars. Got what I came for. Mostly had good to great support. Bass Pro Hat, helper #1, and cashier guy could use a little more customer service training, perhaps from super...

I went into Home Depot to purchase countertops with installation thinking that everything would be fine since they are supposed to be a reputable company. I brought in my estimate of the countertops with pictures. They sold me the material, with what was supposed to be free installation and edges. I was told to go out and see the slabs at All Granite and Marble. When I got there, I showed the representative my measurements and she calculated it. Afterwards, I was supposed to have received an appointment from All Granite and Marble, the installation provider for Home Depot. Two days went by without any response. I called Home Depot and was instructed to call the provider. I was given a date and time frame for the measurement. The employee showed up 25 minutes late and had major attitude when I called to asked him how far he was. When he arrived at my house, he immediately started to complain that he was unable to measure the countertops due to the tile backsplash that had nothing to do with the countertops. I then called All Granite and Marble to schedule another appointment for someone to come out and was informed that the scheduler was at lunch. Two more days went by with no return call. I called on the Tuesday and was told that she was at lunch. Anyway, I was given an appointment date and timeframe from 11am to 2pm. I stayed at home waiting for their employee to come out. At approximately 1:47pm, I received a call from the company that they had to reschedule my appointment. I was not having it, as I explained to the representative that I should have been made aware from in the morning. They sent 2 non English speaking guys who ripped the countertops and my wall. I was then contacted by Home Depot to let me know that “they found an extra 16 square feet of countertop and it was going to cost me $1,900.” I told the rep that, that was impossible and that I wanted a refund. I also made a complaint regarding the damage of my walls. No one from Home Depot or All Granite and Marble have addressed this issue even though I sent photos of the damage to Home Depot. I received a follow up call from another associate at Home Depot and I reiterated the same message and was promised a call back which never happened. Finally I got down to Home Depot and waited for over an half-hour to speak to someone in the kitchen department. When he finally arrived, he tried to tell me the same story. I requested for the manager who arrived with much attitude. After spending 2 hours trying to explain the situation and reporting that the rep from All Granite and Marble basically hang the phone on me when I insisted that the measurements were incorrect and that I needed another measurement, I was promised another opportunity for a re-measurement. Two, guys came out, we spent an hour going over the template that was taken prior. I asked about 4 times for the countertops to be measured and even offered to get my tape measure for them to use. After much reluctance, he finally measured the countertops and found a much discrepancies. The measurements totaled 65 square feet verses the 74 square feet that the other All Marble and Granite employee had stated. I then received a phone call from Home Depot that based on the measurements, I now owned $1,600. I asked, how could that be since the first measurement was 74 square feet and would have cost $1,900 and now it’s 65 square feet so how can it be $1,600 more that I would have to pay. I requested a refund and was bluntly told that they would deduct $250 for having to come out to my house a second time to measure my countertops. I have placed 2-3 calls to Home Depot, transferred and...