Can o' Whupass
Today I faxed the following to the president of Home Depot. It's a boring topic I know but it's one which is occupying my head at the moment.
For the last four months my partner and I have been engaged in having a kitchen (cabinets/countertop etc.) installed in our house by Home Depot. This letter is being written to you because that process has gone very badly and today, we are faced with yet another example of where Home Depot has failed.
I had intended to write a full, long letter detailing the specifics of what we have gone through, at the end of the project, but the water in my basement has increased the need for more immediate attention. So I will limit myself here to the short version of the facts.
From the very start the process that we have been engaged in, to have a kitchen installed in our house, (including fridge, stove, dishwasher, countertops, cabinetry) has been onerous, difficult, time-consuming, and at times ridiculous. It took 5 trips, over more than a month to order the kitchen. So between the day we decided to buy from you, to the day we actually paid you, was over a month. This was down to, what I would characterise as, an incredibly convoluted process, marked by no single person seeming to take any kind of ownership of it.
As well there were some places where the logic of your process defies any kind of explanation. When delivering cabinets, did you know that you only provide �curbside� delivery? This means that the client has to haul the cabinets into the house themselves, the delivery person won�t, nor will the installer. I�m an able-bodied man and so was able to manage, but I can only wonder what my mother or an elderly person would do.
Now if the problem were only process then this would be an academic argument over organizational and process design. But it wasn�t. In all cases, every single thing you delivered was late. When the appliances were delivered, we were given a 4 hour window, they arrived 90 minutes beyond that. They brought a fridge with the doors on the wrong side and then spent the next 90 minutes switching it, after being none too pleased about doing so. But having paid an extra $25 for the correct fridge, we weren�t letting them leave until it was done. When the cabinets were delivered, they were two doors short. We picked up the doors at your store on the weekend, then they delivered two more doors the following week (without actually telling us they were coming). As well, we had a number of extra bits and pieces delivered that we have no need of.
After the install of the cabinets, a template was made for the counter. A week later we called the store for an update and it hadn�t been ordered yet. How long it would have been before Home Depot noticed the problem remains a mystery. When the countertop was finally delivered, an install date was set. The installer called and left a message changing the agreed upon date. He subsequently did not return our calls when we tried to get back in touch, so we were stuck making arrangements to accommodate him on a date that was not suitable. Then, the revised install date came and went and he didn�t show up. Finally after numerous calls, that day and the day after, to both the store and the installer, he returned our calls and agreed to come the next day. That was Tuesday of this week. We thought we were done, and that we�d get to use our kitchen. After doing some dishes last night we released the water in the sink and discovered that all of it ended up in the basement.
It would seem that while installing the sink, the installer pulled or tugged or who knows what, and now the drain is leaking. The only thing that surprises me about this latest problem is that there was even anything more that could have gone wrong.
This letter is to bring this to your attention, and to ask what you and Home Depot can and will do to rectify this situation, and to address what has been, overall, a disappointing experience. At the moment I can�t imagine what would make me do business with Home Depot again.
