Talkback: Keeping house

I plan to auction a house from government. There’re so many comfortable, smart place waiting for us. Which you can consider when it comes to looking for a property to make a purchasing. The following are the three different kinds of auctions for houses

1. Traditional Kind
2. Fixed-Price Auction
3. Online house auctions

Interesting that the primary focus from the CFO of HD is to reduce cost and the customers are talking about their shopping experience. It is also interesting that there is little or no discussion of building business by the ability of HD to attract their competitors customers into their stores with a differentiated experience. There is no discussion about how new products, and actually taking a LEADERSHIP position in innovative new products could improve HD’s performance and earnings. Much of the new innovation is found, not with their existing supplier base (they often resist change), but with start-ups and earlier stage companies. HD has the ability to pioneer new products, but they have become completely focused on costs and fail to capitalize on true differentiation from their competitors as a strategy to build awareness, loyalty, new customers and greater profitability.

as a homedepot “home service” customer I can tell you that it hasn’t been the best experience I have had with home remodeling.

Nice article – BUT – Carol Tome is livin’ in a fantasy: 1. Customer Service is still non-existent. She should go to here stores as a customer, not the CFO. 2. Gross Margin Improvement? – short term – my neighbors who are long term suppliers tell stories of the continued “price beatings at the Depot” yet the creative business building they are doing with Lowes. 3. Lowes has figured out a better experience and the better offerings (and doesn’t use terms like “customer stickness” – only stickniness I see in in aile 10 where the weedkiller spilled and hasn’t been cleaned up yet.
Good to Great reference – glad she’s reading on the weekends – but lightyears away.

I have a rehab/rental business and I often need supplies and advice. I have a Home Depot on Randall Rd in Elgin, IL which is 8 minutes from my house. Unless I know exactly what I need and what isle it’s on, I go to Menards which is 20 minutes from me. The reason is that there are hardly ever associates on the floor to assist me, especially after 6:00 pm. I often yell down the isles and hear my own echos. If an associate hears me, he says he’s not familiar with the department I have questions about. The customer service level has dropped significantly since 2005. Therefore, I now spend a lot of money at Menards because they hire the staff the HD does not. Any explanation???

I hate self checkouts at every major chain store, however the service at HD is 100times better than Lowes. As a homeowner doing small redo now and then I usually get help and answers much more effectively at HD. At Lowes you get no help, no service and still have poor check out service.

I like the fact you offer to cut pieces of wood purchased to size, and you have self-service mitre box and saws. I think you could draw customers by offering more such services. Some of your competitors don’t do that type of service so I avoided them.

Want to enhance the customer experience? Get rid of the self-checkout machines. Frankly, I only go to Home Depot when I absolutely have to (mainly because of the convenient hours)and avoid Home Depot when other options are available because I am insulted wby self-checkout. When I am about to spend a few thousand dollars, the very least that Home Depot can do is provide the simple courtesy of having someone help me to pay for my purchase! Self-checkouts may seem like a good idea to those in the glass castle at corporate headquarters when analyzing the bottom line, but what have they actually cost HD in lost sales from disgruntled customers? I guess there is no way to really know…..

We are always updating our home as our finances allow. We have touched almost every surfact in our home. Unfortunately I have called on Home Depot to help with installation twice. Both big dissapoints. One guy told me he couldn’t refinish my bathroom for less than 12K and said if we weren’t willing to spend that, he might as well leave. We asked him to do just that and ended up paying 8K to someone else. Second time we had carpet installed. Job was shoddy and Home Depot never resolved our issue. Would love to use them again, but wary.