Big Retail Customer Service in Action

A friend of mine shared an incident that happened to him this past week, and I thought you might get a laugh from the story. He went shopping at Home Depot for a bi-fold door. He found one on clearance sale, marked down to $41 from $71. Thrilled at the deal, he headed to the checkout lanes.

The first clerk scanned it, looked puzzled, and called for help. The second clerk scanned it and announced, "We can't sell this to you." When asked why, she replied, "We need to throw it out."

Turns out the product had been on clearance too long, so they removed it from the inventory database but failed to remove it from the store floor. As a result, and contrary to all common sense or personal judgment, she could not accept the $41 my friend wanted to pay for the product he wanted to buy because she needed to discard it.

My friend considered waiting out back to take the door out of the trash bin, but after some discussion with a manager, it was decided he could purchase the door. Funny thing is, since the product wasn't in the database, they charged him one penny. On the way out, he told them if he didn't like the door, he'd be returning it for his single cent back.

It's incidents like these that shake one's faith in common sense, or at least in the way big retail chains operate. Maybe I'm biased--since I am the owner of a small boutique--but the idea that employees either were unwilling to act or were not given the authority to act in such an obvious situation seems contrary to the concept of good customer service and the helpful Home Depot brand. As a result of these employees being unable to handle this situation sensibly, Home Depot lost $41.99 in revenue (and almost lost the goodwill of a customer).