For anyone interested in corporate governance as applied to The Home Depot, todays Wall Street Journal has an interview (First page, Second Section) with Frank Blake, the new CEO of HD in which he proposes a number of ideas to improve service at the BORG. It takes many miles for a super tanker to make a turn. Although I don't do a great deal of business there, they do provide support when most professional suppliers are closed.
Joe G
My proposal is that while they're reinventing their customer service model they might announce to all employees that they will be closely monitoring customer feedback. Fire a few for poor customer service and the others should come around. Oh, and it would behoove Mr. Blake to open up more freakin' cash registers at busy times. Man, customer service is not rocket science.
First things first.
If the management in Atlanta wants to truly improve customer service. then they will have to accept the fact that employees are people, not equipment.
The above is based on conversations with an employee who is in contact with customers every day.
H/D treats their employees like whale crap and that is at the bottom of the ocean.
The results are not swift.
Lew
Snip
Nooooo kidding.
What many businesses seemed to have forgotten is that Customer Service is what gets the customer to spend his money in "your" store. More open cash registers means that the customer gives you his money more quickly and that is what it is all about.
The above doesn't penetrate the "bean counter" mentality.
They only look at it as a cost saving, as in it is less expensive to inventory customers than it is to have staff on the payroll to serve them.
Sounds good on paper, but doesn't include the poor public relations factor, and it's indirect cost.
Lew
Not at my local HD... To call these lazy, uncaring, inattentive, slugs either people or equipment is a real disservice to people and equipment.
Hense the businesses seemed to have forgotten...... ALL long term successful businesses have bean counters, theirs are just more successful than others.
Some do, others look at the big picture.
Exactly. A good bean counter can analyze the results of "all" the data fed to him, others don't.
If you truly want to screw up a business, put an accountant in as CEO.
An accountant trying to run a business is like driving down the road at 80 MPH, looking in the rear view mirror to see where you are going.
A couple of the more infamous accountant CEOs in Detroit were Lynn Townsend at Chrysler (Iaccocia cleaned up his mess) and Roger Smith at GM.
There are more, but you get the idea.
Accountants are trained to count beans, not run businesses.
Lew
The point is they DO have plenty of employees on duty. The problem is those employees are doing anything but providing customer service.
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