Home Depot's Public Relations Backfire
by Randy Cassingham
A lot of public relations professionals are just that -- professional. Sometimes, though, an inept practititioner -- a "flack" as they're often known -- tries to intervene and ends up doing more harm than good.
In my column This is True, which reports on strange-but-true articles from newspapers (with a usually funny "tagline" added on after the story, as a comment), I wrote this item about a criminal's attempt to steal from Home Depot. It was in the 30 April 2000 issue:
Do It YourselfPolice in Albuquerque, N.M., say Edward Hall, 50, stole a utility trailer from a Home Depot store by hitching it to the back of his pickup truck and driving away. A few miles from the store, it came loose and crashed beside the road, so he went back to the store and stole a second one. The second also came loose and crashed just 75 yards from the first. As a Bernalillo County Sheriff's deputy investigated the crashes, Hall clipped the deputy's parked patrol car with, yes, a third trailer as he drove by. A chase ensued as Hall tried to get away -- at a mere 25 mph, "probably because he knows the trailers, at high speeds, don't stay on very well," a detective said. Hall was charged with possession of burglary tools, three counts of unlawful taking a motor vehicle, and leaving the scene of an accident. (AP) ...However, he's been signed to do a series of Home Depot commercials with their new slogan, "Take it From Us!"
Now any dolt can see where the story ends and the smart-assed comment begins, right?
Well, Home Depot's flack couldn't. A few days after the story went out in True's free online feed, I found the following message on my voice mail:
Yeah, this is Don, Home Depot's public relations manager. Randy, you did a piece about a guy who stole not one, not two, but three trailers from our Albuquerque, New Mexico, store before he got caught. All of that is true. The last line, however, in your story, however, "He's been signed to do a series of Home Depot commercials with the new slogan, 'Take it from us!'", uh, that's very humorous, Randy, but this is FALSE! You lost some credibility with me, big guy! < click >
Notice he didn't leave his phone number for me to call him back. Which just goes to show: when it comes to Home Depot, you can never find anyone who knows anything to help you.
>:-(
Randy Cassingham is the author of This is True and the True Stella Awards, and is the founder of Cranky Customer.
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Comments
I recently had an experience with Home Depot that you might care to hear about. Home Depot employees are famous for not being in their department. I have a store near me that has infuriated me continuously for years. I try to avoid this store but I recently, with gas prices what they are, decided to stop at on the way home from work. I purchased some big 6x6 beams and cinder blocks for cribbing.
After waiting for 20 minutes while the laziest, slowest, and rudest jerk in the store stacked an isle, I finally procured my intended purchase. I moved the stuff out to my truck in the parking lot on one of those flatbed carts, you know the carts with the flat wheels that bounce the stuff off as you push them. No, the cinder blocks did not fall off and bust, but only because I moved very slow and was very careful. I got to my truck I started to load the items. I have a hard top bed cover on this particular truck and I found that it might be best to get someone to hand me the stuff while I stowed it in the back of the truck so I went in and asked the register clerk to get me some help.
Ok, now you can guess were this is going. The helpful clerk said, I don't know where so and so is he is supposed to be loading today but I will find you someone. Guess who he found. Mister lazy, rude, and worthless. This guy gets to the door and I point to my truck 50 feet away. He sees what I am loading and announces that he can't go into the parking lot for safety reasons and I will have to bring all the stuff back to their loading area to get his help. I am not going to try to move that again on that crappy cart so I tell him never mind and go load it myself, bad back and all.
As I am climbing out of the back of the truck after finishing loading and missing "so and so" shows up and says, wow you look like you have already gotten the stuff loaded. Is there anything else I can do? At this time I am about to go nuclear but I manage to politely say, "can you find me the store manager?" He says yes and we trundle off to see if we can find Chip the local manager. I had it in my mind to dress him down and at least get some explanation as to why he would keep mister rude and lazy on the payroll for the three or more years he has been there. I wanted to know if Chip was blind stupid or related to mister rude and lazy. More then likely related as this is Alabama after all. Everybody is related here.
I never got my explanation because Chip was also missing in action.
This did not surprise me as I buy carpet at Home Depot a lot and have tried to find a manager on many occasions because it needs to be cut and there is never a employee around to cut it. And surprisingly enough when I have gotten a manager who would page an employee they wouldn't even show up for the manager.
I have been a businessman for over 30 years and in management. I can not fathom how a business can be run like this and not go out of business.
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Because you, and people like you, keep going back! -rc
Posted by: Jason Alabama | April 12, 2008 4:25 AM
True, Home Depot has definitely gone down in customer service. I had purchased a water heater and scheduled an install date. I was called the morning of the install to confirm and was told I was number two on the list. I waited until 2p and no installer. I called and was told that that due to some foul-up, that I was no longer on the list for install that day, but rather moved to the next day--it's a good thing I took a day off of work to be blown-off by the installer. I canceled the install and went to Lowes.
Posted by: James - Chicago | April 22, 2008 5:55 PM
I have been doing a continuous home project on my home, in the thousands of dollars, and I joking would say that I own part of Home Depot. Obviously I would buy more than I would need, to avoid returning between jobs, and I felt safe due to HD's liberal return policy. It was like having a home-town harward store on a bigger scale. I was a avid customer! Then when at least one project slowed down, I started to take back items that I hadn't used to get a return so I could use that toward the next project. What a shock it was to find that their policy had changed. Initially they took down my drivers' license number, then when I attempted to bring back more later (without the quick-deteriorating receipts), I was told that I had exceeded my return no-receipt limit and would have to get managers' approval and that they would only give me a percent of the initial price back.
Okay, that was NUMBER ONE. Then when I found out that my favorite company (HD) had refused to give to a very viable, well known religious charity, but gave to a lesbian promotion....I contacted their PR department to voice my pro-family concerns...only to be told that HOME Depot will give to whoever they want, and won't be pressured by anyone do otherwise. So I voiced, as do those who hopefully red this will...that I WILL ALSO BUY FROM WHERE I WANT TO, AND IT WON"T BE AT HOME DEPOT !
Posted by: Jim | May 1, 2008 12:08 PM