Wednesday ordered some tile trim from HD online for my personal residence bathroom. Nearest HD is 150 miles away. Paid 30 bucks extra for the express 2 day shipping, to arrive today. Today, no package arrived. Call HD 800#, package han’t been shipped. Lady apologized, took off the 30 dollar up charge (big whoop) and said they would ship out via UPS overnight air. Few hours later, get the tracking # from UPS, seems it’s going out UPS ground, to be delivered next Thursday, almost a full week after original date. Meanwhile I have two tile guys on the clock waiting around for four days. No good. Called HD again, lady on the line says there is nothing they can do, and no supervisor is available to hear me complain about their back to back mistakes.

I’ll have to drive 300 miles round trip tomorrow AM.

From the Musical “The Book of Morman” at least I don’t have maggots in my scrotum.

As a contractor, this happens with almost every supplier. One time Lowe's made a wrong order on my complete kitchen cabinets. They were delivered on a Tuesday and there was no way I could install the kitchen with a missing cabinet. They get attached together. They said, "We can have a replacement in 4 to 6 weeks", nothing we can do.

SO I called the manufacture and complained. Since no one would take responsibility for the error and my remodel was not going to take another 6 weeks to complete, someone was going to take responsibility.

In a 3-way phone call to Lowe'e and the cabinet manufacturer, I told them they could make up the missing cabinet within a day to two and have it flown in the cargo hole of a plane, arriving at my door step within 4 days. If I didn't have my cabinet in 5 days, I was going to put the cabinets into the garage for them to come pick them up and I was going to buy ready made cabinets from a local supplier. My order was around $10,000 for these high end cabinets.

They said I could do that. I explained that I used my American Express Card to charge this purchase and on my contract it state, order shall be completely filled within the time frame set in the contract or all is returnable for a full refund.

In three days I had the replacement cabinet delivered to the job site. Now I don't take NO for an answer on special orders with a dead line set in stone.

Please know that this comment is not intended as a personal criticism, and there's certainly no excuses for such screw ups since HD advertised a product and service and failed to deliver....and yet, let's think thru the whole scenario...

1) HD is trying to undercut competition on price; they are the "everyday low prices/WalMart" of building supply. So should we expect top notch customer service all of the time, most of the time, some of the time, or be happy when they simply speak English?

2) Living in a remote area (I don't know if you're rural, but it sounds like it), compounds problems. You've probably heard the old story of how the Revolutionary War could have been lost, "for want of a nail." Basically, the smallest slip-up/mistake gets compounded when you add more steps and complexity. Living 150 miles away from the point of delivery for a large, heavy order seems to fit that description. Labor pool in your market may be tight as well. Regardless of pay, there are some areas where there's just not a sufficient supply of quality help to be had for a operation the size of HD.

I think sometimes we get so used to the over-the-top efficiency of delivery services like Amazon where it's "one click" and 2 days later the package shows up on our doorstep, we forget how many moving pieces, parts, and steps go into something "simple" like getting a pallet of tile 150 miles from point A to B. Again, not excusing their lack of service since that's what was promised. But it's touches on the topic of "managed expectations." Low prices + Shipped to you + Low-paid/lower-skilled help = greater than normal likelihood something will go wrong.

As you can tell by your solution of getting it yourself, sometimes adding more value value to the process then it dramatically increases the chances of success.

Bottom line: I don't think they're morons. I think they're people who are likely trying to do their best given a set of conditions discussed above, and sometimes it doesn't work out. Time will tell. If this HD store ends up closing their doors due to 1000s of fouled up orders sending customers elsewhere...we might come back and talk about why.

My latest HD story:

I ordered a full pallet of vinyl plank flooring. The order gave an arrival date. I went out of town on vacation.

Pallet never arrived.

While on vacation, I spent two hours on the phone/internet tracking what happened.

Found the package sitting in a freight delivery terminal "we don't know what to do with it".

I asked them "have you tried calling the phone number on the order?"

Well, no, but that would be our next step...

It was already 4 days overdue. I got a manager on the phone. I told him delivery next day or send it back. He sent it back.

I will NEVER NEVER NEVER.NEVER.NEVER.NEVER.NEVER.NEVER ever use HD for anything but what I can get off the shelf and inspect. Pre-made cabinets are always broken some where, Carpet install is criminal.

I also wont ever by a Ford or Goodyear tires

I am too old to put up with it

Two weeks ago I finished a shower job in an occupied rental (I prefer to do such a remodel when the rentals are vacant, but this was an emergency).

The floor and wall tiles came from HD...the difference: I went there, inspected/selected them, picked them up, bought 10% extra, and installed myself.

Any landlord who does it any other way, will run into problems more often than not, because trusting and depending on so many people who don't care always leads to this.

If I can not put my hands of eyes on the product i simply go online where they go.

If I can not put my hands of eyes on the product i simply go online where they go.

If I can not put my hands of eyes on the product i simply go online where they go.

Vee OH,

JR so I might have seen you at the store today. You were probably only one department over from my location.

I always tell my customers who order things on .com that when the date for delivery is 7-10 days from now to expect it to be the full 10 days as we live in “the great white north”. And the installer should not really be scheduled until you have all of the materials. For my area, and most certainly yours, I would never expect a turn around less than the longer limits given for anything.

Thanks everyone for your comments. SId, I get your point that the low price leader might not be the best service leader. But anyone open for business ought to have a certain level of competence.

The original order wasn’t delayed, it hadn’t been shipped at all despite express shipping. And when I called to complain, they said they would ship it air overnight but in reality they shipped it...regular ground. When I said to cancel the order as it would arrive too late and Ill drive the 150 miles to pick it up in person...wait for it...they can’t cancel it “because it has been shipped.” Argh. Moronic processes and impotent customer service. The people all seemed nice, though.

A relative has a log cabin on a lake in your lovely state. He decided to move there full-time, and wanted to remodel to winterize and enlarge it a bit. He anticipated all kinds of issues with the town - but all of the permits were issued with little trouble.

His real problem came when he was trying to act as his own general contractor - this Long Island, NY boy discovered that there is absolutely no guarantee that items ordered will arrive in a timely fashion during the very short building season. So he hired a highly qualified and reliable contractor who has a warehouse for gathering and storing the materials necessary. But the project now has to wait 2 or 3 seasons, as the contractor is fully booked.

My relative sheepishly admits that he never considered supply issues, and as an engineer who deals with procuring materials for projects as part of his job, what a dope he was not to! "Boy, am I spoiled to have H.D. and Lowes only a few miles from home!"

Really guys and gals. Not all people who work at Home Depot are morons. I have lots of competent co workers and consider myself pretty competent. Not to sat that there aren’t some who are incompetent, but not all.

Really guys and gals. Not all people who work at Home Depot are morons. I have lots of competent co workers and consider myself pretty competent. Not to sat that there aren’t some who are incompetent, but not all.

Sorry I'm late to the bashing. I think we single handedly kept Home Depot solvent in 2007-12.

I'm at the point where when an employee nicely asks me if I'd like some help, I'm like...

"NO! LEAVE ME ALONE! I know where every item in this store is! And I forgot more about (name the trade) than you will ever know! SO LEAVE ME THE ---- ALONE!!!"

Actually a lot of the folks who work there DO actually know their trades pretty well. I've learned a lot over the years from HD plumbing, electric and hardware clerks.

And - Vee... :D :D

"But anyone open for business ought to have a certain level of competence." Their competence is maximizing their profit. That means paying the quality of employees will suffer when they pay employees the minimum to retain them.

When you order product from a retailer, there's no contract for the shipping time . Worst case, they accept return and refund any expedited shipping you paid, and give you a couple bucks on a gift card as a good will . Robert J's story is the same, the cabinet suppler would not be paying him any damages, and would simply refund him .

HD has been alright to me, but they could use some help with the contracted delivery company. At this point, I have them deliver to the store instead of the location where the appliance is going.