Home Depot Customer Service Gets High Score

Home Depot Customer Service Gets High Score

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One day in November 2009, my wife came to me and said she saw a TV commercial from Home Depot advertising they would take back old Christmas lights that no longer worked and offer $3 toward the purchase of LED Christmas lights. I drove over to Home Depot a few days later and noticed that the LED lights used only 4 amps of current while our old Christmas light strings used a lot more power. We were trying to cut our energy costs and thought this offer was just too good to pass up. I called the store a few days later to find out that the deal had expired, two days prior. We had just heard of this offer and now it had expired. I fired off an e-mail to the Home Depot people as follows:

Comments: My wife viewed an advertisement where your stores would take back old Christmas lights for credit on energy savings units. I called the store in my area and they said that program ended on the 15th. I am most sorry you did not provide a wider window to participate.

In a few days I got this response:

Thank you for contacting The Home Depot Customer Care. We appreciate receiving feedback from you and want to thank you for taking the time to forward your concerns. We apologize for not meeting your expectations.

Please know that your feedback is provided to our stores and Corporate Offices, so that we can make necessary business improvements.

Thank you, again, for sharing your comments and bringing this to our attention.

We look forward to your continued patronage and assisting you with all of your home improvement needs.

Sincerely,

Nayeem
Customer Care Research Team

I thought that was the end of it but I get a phone call from the store manager in Fullerton, California. She said she had looked over my e-mail and would extend the offer to me. I said I was most surprised and thought her offer was very nice. She said Home Depot wanted to properly serve its customers to the best of their ability. She notified me that I could call the store, if I arrived late for any sale offer, and ask that the offer be extended.  She went on to tell me that she thought this was the second year that Home Depot offered this special offer.  I told her that I was most sorry to be late to the sale and once again thanked her for her generous offer.

The very next day, my wife and I drove to the Fullerton Home Depot and turned in 7 Christmas light strings. We purchased the same number of LED strings costing around $40 total. With the credit we received from the old lights, we only paid about $20.

I am most impressed with Home Depot’s attitude toward its customers.

The story did not end. I get an e-mail from a customer care department. I will share part of that message next:

Recently, you contacted The Home Depot with a concern or question regarding our company, operations or products. We are very interested to learn about your recent experience with our Customer Care department. We have commissioned NetReflector, an independent marketing firm, to conduct the survey to obtain your valuable and candid feedback. Your feedback will help us ensure that we are consistently providing you with the highest levels of personal service. Please take a few minutes to answer some brief questions about your recent experience with The Home Depot.

I then am directed to answer a survey on line. The questions in the survey were all toward measuring my satisfaction in this issue being resolved to MY satisfaction. This is most impressive!

Dr. Kit Kat Food Reviews

Dr. Kit Kat Food Reviews

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November 24, 2009, I get a Facebook movie review for Star Trek (2009) from Dr. Kit Kat.  But then she added a “Thanksgiving Day Bonus” existing of a review for a food item.   I guess, being a slave to the women in my life, I now will share with all of you her food reviews.  As explained in the postings for Dr. Kit Kat movie reviews, this lady has to undergo dialysis three times a week.  If you were to see her, she looks very thin.  She can not seem to gain any weight.  Food restrictions are quite extensive and are so limited that food to her takes on a most important pleasure.  When she is allowed to eat something and it tastes very good, her pleasure seems to zoom way past what we experience.  Just like movie reviews, she views food with a slightly different perspective than the rest of us.

Her first food review:  “***Thanksgiving Day Bonus***   I recently sampled Trader Joe’s pumpkin pie. I’m not an avid fan of pumpkin pie, but I enjoyed the smooth and moist consistency of TJ’s pumpkin pie. The pumpkin filling was tasty, light and with subtle essences of nutmeg, cinnamon and pumpkin. The crust was flakey and not overwhelmingly heavy and dry like most grocery store bought pies may be. I rate TJ’s pumpkin pie 9 (9.5 with whipped cream or ice cream).”

Dr. Kit Kat has since passed away.

Denied Chance To Be Eagle Scout.

Denied Chance To Be Eagle Scout.

Comments 5 comments

Being a father, I find that I must become a follower to my son and daughter’s wishes some times and this seems to expand as they grow older.  One day my son came to me and said he wanted to join a Boy Scout troop.  It seemed a couple of his friends were in a particular Troop, 723, in Portola District, North Orange County, Calif.  I was not keen about the idea because I had some problems with the Boy Scouts when I was a child.  My son would be joining a bit late and would need to do some catching up in meeting the scout advancement to be equal to other boys his age.

My son joined and I joined shortly as an active committee member and eventually as their first troop web master.  I took adult classes on how to be an assistant scout master and even had a uniform and went on outings with the troop.

I had been involved in other community groups but the troop my son joined seemed full of adult drama.  Some of the parents had difficulty getting along with other parents.  The troop adult leadership was cliquish and controlling.  The troop adult committee meetings were well attended by parents but failed to take charge of the troop as specified by the Boy Scout dictates; probably intimidated by the leaders that seem to know a lot more about scouting.

My son gained in rank slowly at first but then spurted ahead for quite some time.  He was popular enough to make patrol leader quite a few times and he would come home to complain that the troop was being run by the scout master and his son not the boys.  In particular, the scout master allegedly was running the troop as if its existence was to serve his needs.  More than once our drives home from patrol leaders council meetings, my son remarked that he had learned the true meaning of hypocrisy.  The scout master allegedly would not let the patrol leaders decide much and misrepresented issues to the parents to cover discrepancies.  Many decisions were arbitrarily made according to my son’s reports to me.  The committee chairman was even told he could not attend the patrol leaders council but friends of the scout master were allowed in even his son when he held no position in the troop.

Just after I joined, it seemed a number of parents were also new to the troop and we were all encouraged to take assistant scout master training so the troop would have a large pool of assistant scout masters.  A number of us took training classes together, purchased uniforms, and became involved in the troop in various ways.

Approximately a year later, one of the assistant scout masters came and informed me that all but a few of the assistant scout masters had been removed from the troop roster.  No one could figure out how this happened.

Troop advancement now ran completely through the soda straw scout master.  The committee was expected to run the troop but only seemed to put together the yearly events calendar.   It effectively was a rubber stamp for the scout master and his clique.  The committee chairman was ineffective at setting things straight, possibly because he only was looking out for his three sons.  A fair amount of our troop problems seemed to arise out of parents thinking first about their own children.

About a year and a half before my son would time out and remove himself from the troop, he came to me and said the scout master had told him that there would be no more advancement for nine months.   My son had finished Star ranking and had six of seven items to finish for Life Scout when he was denied going further.   There was no explanation.  The advancement chairman was a personal friend and I went to her and she could not understand what was going on.

I pleaded with my son, numerous times, to move to another troop but his friends were at the current troop and he refused.  At about the end of the nine months a new scout master was picked after being groomed by the one who denied my son being advanced.  He had some family medical problem and failed to go out on outings for about three months.  They said that my son could only advance by going out on an outing and participating in a scoutmaster conference.  No other assistant scout master was allowed to advance my son for about one year!  My son seemed to give up by skipping meetings and finally not going all together.  The whole structure of scouting is advancement.

A half year prior to my son’s birthdate, which would require my son to leave the troop, we got a call from the then current scout master.  I think my son had not been going to scout meetings for at least half a year, when we get this call.

They “noticed” that my son had about six months to finish Eagle Scout.  I asked my son what he wanted to do.  My son had already given up on the troop due to their blocking his advancement.  We were not convinced that the very people who denied advancement would, all of a sudden, do better.   I thought that the call was a means of making an offering that they knew could not be fulfilled to cover their misdeed.  We went over everything that he had to do to make Eagle Scout.  The time line looked daunting.  My son said it was too late for him, he had to focus on high school studies.

I have had three years to reflect about all of this and I am still most angry at the Boy Scout organization for not allowing my son a chance to achieve Eagle Scout.  The fault is in its organization structure.  Boy Scouts for me is a my son first organization.  They need to make a change so that assistant scout masters are in place and can advance the boys in case a scout master becomes ill or stops advancing a scout.

My son is not bitter about this experience.  He just thinks this is normal adult behavior for some people.  I totally disagree on both points.

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Received this from Facebook (Feb 12, 2010) from LOMcC:

In our area the Scouts are just another adjunct of the LDS Church. An acquaintance told me her grandson was discouraged from any further achievements because he wasn’t keen on being baptized as a Mormon. Perhaps your son faced this same discrimination.

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Scorecard:

You might be on to something.  Our troop’s meetings were at a Methodist Church and quite a few of the troop members did attend that church.  My son is no lemming, does not goose step down the approved White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) chalk line.  He might have stepped out of line a bit by telling other scouts that he was agnostic.   He does believe in a supreme being but one of his own, I think.  At that time he was reading about other religions and found some eastern religions had some interesting features that he liked.  Boy Scouts embraces, if not being the poster child, for  the WASP chalk line.  Our troop membership came from engineers, police, law and a mix of other WASP professions.  The Boy Scouts exit door is directly across the hall from the entry door to the military, another WASP institution.  Society does have its means of filter and control to the values of conservatism.

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To read more about this subject: An excerpt from On My Honor Boy Scouts and the Making of American Youth by Jay Mechling.

Book can be purchased from publisher: University Of Chicago Press.
Book sold by Amazon

A book that explores this problem from a whole different perspective is The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth by Alexandra Robins.

Dr. Kit Kat Dialysis Procedure Movie Reviews

Dr. Kit Kat Dialysis Procedure Movie Reviews

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I befriended a young lady at the club I work out at.  Our conversation began because she brought to the club Kit Kat candy, which I spotted while she was on a treadmill.  I will refer to her as Dr. Kit Kat for the purpose of these reviews.  While at medical school at Ohio State University she contracted hepatitis.  She was given a shot to protect against hepatitis prior to coming down with the disease.  The shot failed to protect; she contracted a rare form of the disease and finally suffered kidney failure.  She goes to dialysis three times a week.  Her existence, due to this illness, has dumbed down to a simple restrictive regimen.  The food she is allowed to eat is heavily restricted.  She thus likes to watch the food channel on TV.  She cannot travel because she is tied to the dialysis machine.  She thus likes to watch the travel channel on TV.  After dialysis she feels terrible.  In an attempt to raise her spirits a bit, I have lent her DVD movies.    I love to buy really good $5 movies.  It is somewhat curious that the rating of movies for her and probably other dialysis patients are skewed differently.  Because they are undergoing such a powerful downward spiral medical procedure, parameters for these people change somewhat.  A movie must shout a bit more loudly with attributes that the rest of us mildly appreciate.  We will share with you her movie scores and out of her comments you might begin to see that movie scores do shift a bit.  When you see quotes around text, this typically is her precise review sent to us by Facebook or e-mail.  When you see no quotes, this means we attempted to describe her review by conversations we had with Dr. Kit Kat.

Note: This project started November 2009.  Each week we expect to add one or two reviews to this posting.

CURRENT TOP PICKS:

Basic 2003, Score: 9.  Dr. Kit Kat said this film was intelligent, action packed, multiple twists all contribute to this movie keeping one’s mind off of the drudge of the dialysis.  [Score Card found this quite interesting as this movie seems to have flown under a lot of radar screens].

Valkyrie Score 9  “This is an action-packed drama based on the true story of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s plight to assassinate Adolf Hilter. Tom Cruise delivers depth and intensity of character while creating suspense and excitement throughout the story line. It was refreshing to view Tom Cruise’s multifaceted talent in this atypical role. Finally, a movie not needing superfluous special effects and indecent language to be entertaining! I rate this movie a 9 (mainly because I like Tom Cruise).”

——————–

Regular Move Reviews:

27 Dresses Score 6.  Dr. Kit Kat said that one could fall asleep any time and wake up and not loose a place in the action.

Under Suspicion Score: 6  Dr. Kit Kat did not like the subject matter of pedophile.  The ending was clever and raised the score a bit.

Walace & Gromit The Course Of The Were-Rabbit.  Score 3.  Dr. Kit Kat only gave this really clever and extremely well done animation a low score.  She was not into animation.

The facility where Dr. Kit Kat undergoes dialysis checked on the movie which she brought in, Red Dragon, and found it to have an R rating.  It seems that some time ago a patient complained of seeing an R rated movie being displayed on one of the TV screens.  This unfortunately has resulted in a “punish all”.  A “punish all” is when everyone must suffer because of an alleged screw up by, usually, one individual.  This type of “logic” typically defies common sense.  Its use is typically found in institutions that just love to make sweeping stupid policies and justify it, link it, to stupid simple mistakes by a one or a few individuals.   The “stupid”, in this case, is that these patients are undergoing a pretty dire procedure and you would think that any meaningful diversion would be welcome.  These people may need R ratings, not only PG!  Now you would think a company that is in the business of administering dialysis would get this line of reasoning but, allegedly, they have a disconnect in their logic, apparently incapable of compassion toward their customers.  The dialysis company did offered to show the move Flicka.

We are advising Dr. Kit Kat to take her laptop to dialysis and view the R rated movies on that device.  If this works for her, we will continue our movie reviews.

I met with Dr. Kit Kat November 15 at the health club where we both work out.  She came up with a terrific idea.  Why not put the R rated movie into a PG case?  That night I found an empty case, Because I Said So, a PG-13 movie, and will hand that over to Dr. Kit Kat and put Red Dragon inside.

I Robot “I rate it an 8. The movie plot and Will Smith provided consistent action, although I wish they would have developed the character Sunny more.  He was a likable robot.  There was some feeble yet worthwhile attempts of historic symbolism near the end of the movie, but nothing too profound.”

Bad Company Rate of 6  ” It was action-packed bad acting in part of Chris Rock. Although Chris Rock may be a good stand up comedian, his talent did not transfer to his acting ability. Will Smith or Eddie Murphy may have saved this movie. The movie’s plot was cliche and predictable, but lightly entertaining. I rate it a 6 (mainly because Chris Rock’s one-liner punch lines throughout the film were annoying).”

Star Trek 2009  Score 7  “The new movie release of “Star Trek” is a prologue of many more “trekkie” sequels to come. It presents an updated and refreshing cast of the original Star Trek characters as well as a cameo of Leanard Nemoy playing an older Mr. Spock. The movie starts from the very beginning with the birth of Captain Kirk and the evolution of the union of the Enterprise crew. Although the plot and the ultimate ending were predictable, the action scenes and special effects were lightly entertaining. If I were a “Trekkie” I would rate this an 8, since it’s enjoying the movie’s journey rather than the destiny that counts. Being a non-“Trekkie ” I rate this a 7.

Valkyrie Score 9  “This is an action-packed drama based on the true story of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s plight to assassinate Adolf Hilter. Tom Cruise delivers depth and intensity of character while creating suspense and excitement throughout the story line. It was refreshing to view Tom Cruise’s multifaceted talent in this atypical role. Finally, a movie not needing superfluous special effects and indecent language to be entertaining! I rate this movie a 9 (mainly because I like Tom Cruise).”

Wild Wild West Score 1  “with Will Smith and Kevin Kline was Real Real Bad!  The remake of the popular 1970’s TV drama was a disappointing and sleeper attempt to revive the characters, action, and comedy of the original show.  The best part of the movie was the ending–that is , the movie was finally over!  It is not even recommended for background noise.  I had to read my medical journals during the movie in order to get through it!  I generously rate it 1.”

Score Card:  I found this move to be a delight.  For the life of me I find it difficult why Dr. Kit Kat did not like this movie.  Dr. Kit Kat likes intellectual entertainment and this movie has very little of that component.  I would rate it a 5.

Dr. Kit Kat passed away in the year 2014 from her medical condition.  Her parents and brother are still living.  I will miss her.

Donkeys dyed to look like zebras – news story, Oct. 2009.

Donkeys dyed to look like zebras – news story, Oct. 2009.

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Evidently donkeys at Marah Land Zoo in Gaza City were dyed with black stripes because real zebras would be too expensive to bring to Gaza.

Let me spin this topic a bit from its original meaning and then turn it back upon itself.

I love to drink zebras.  The coffee store, I seem to frequent, simply has such strong coffee that I had to drink mocha’s to keep from having my eyes well up with tears due to the strong coffee flavor.  The same coffee store’s mocha was a bit harsh, not smooth.  I complained to a barista one day and they suggested that I add white chocolate; what a difference.  The name for the drink was zebra, white and dark chocolate.  When done correctly the drink has a hint of marshmallow but that is when the barista makes the drink perfectly.  I now had a perfect coffee drink with white and dark chocolate.  I order nothing else.

The zebra drink has meaning beyond the delicious sipping of overly strong coffee with dark and white chocolate.  It is a politically correct drink.  It represents white and black America.  Both the dark and light are blended together to formulate a delicious blend, a third if not totally new taste.  I had a sociology teacher tell me that the mixing of the races would meld societies and less conflict would result.  He recommend that we date people from other races.

The Palestinians and Jews are like white and dark chocolate.  I do not mean to associate white with Palestinians due to the order of my writing and dark with Jews or vice-versa.  What I do wish to convey is two opposites that will never come together until they have a really strong coffee element added to the mix. I like my drink hot and, if I may extend the association to that part of the middle east, is also really hot with conflict.

That donkey painted with black stripes can be seen symbolically in many ways.  For me it should be symbolic of Palestine and Israel’s conflict.  I see two opposite colors artificially painted stripes side by side, touching but not running together to form an overall  gray animal.  The donkey stands for the region full of politicians that exemplify, in their actions and dogmatic rhetoric, the alternative word for a male donkey, jackass.

Adobe Creative Suite CS4

Adobe Creative Suite CS4

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I love the Adobe suite of products for the web.  It costs a lot of money but Dreamweaver and Photoshop really are most professional and one saves money, sometimes, by buying more than one software in a bundle.  I even have accepted Bridge even though it seems a bit awkward.  My infatuation was put to the test with the most recent upgrade, CS4.  The installation went swell until I noticed that Dreamweaver failed to install.  Of all the products in the suite, Dreamweaver is the most important for me.   No error message appeared, when I installed, except that that choice of application installation was dimmed at the start of the installation process.  Until this inexcusable error is corrected, I can not recommend this product.  It appears to me that the product installation is allegedly incompetently written.

Follow up 8/30/09

I found that Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional, a part of the CS4 suite failed.  I found the following web site where a whole list of issues were “exposed”: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405970.html.  I printed out the instructions and it came to 13 pages!  If Adobe could do things right, we would not be killing as many trees.

Ok, here we go.  Following instruction number one, I am to find the Adobe Licensing Repair Tool.  Here is the link: http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/licensing.html   I printed this page out which now makes my “kill tree” total to 14 pages.  I see a link at the bottom of the page which sends me to this web page: http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/licensing_download_eula.html  They want me to read a license agreement.  At the bottom of that page are separate links to Windows and Mac repair tools to download.  I am now on my umpteen cup of tea plowing through this never ending problem.  The “repair” software download went rather quick.  I now have a new file on my computer desktop called LIcenseRecovery11.5.0.9.  It opens up and a number of folders appear along with an application called “LicenseRecoveryLauncher.app”.  Well, it takes its sweet time “Finding software” on my laptop.  Next I see the screen show downloading Rosetta…  Then I see Installing 1 item.  The program quits.  Guess I need to go back to the cheat sheet to see what I need to do next.  The cheat sheet tells me to “Enter your administrator username and password when prompted and click OK.”  Excuse me but no application loaded for me to do this.  Now I have to find where that little pesky progam went during the installation.  Well it was not found on the desktop.  It was not found in Applications.  I give up.  I start the process over again by clicking on the file “LicenseRecoveryLauncer.app.  Whow, Terminal pops up

Last login: Sun Aug 30 15:27:26 on console
McLarenblog-MacBook-Pro-3:~ mclaren$ sudo python ‘/Volumes/LicenseRecovery11.5.0.9/’LicenseRecover.py

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type “man sudo” for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:

The instructions on the cheat sheet tells me to “Enter your administrator username and password when prompted and click OK.”   That is a bit wierd.  The program asks for Password first.  I try this first and it takes the second time.  I then get this screen:

=======================================
Trusted Storage Recovery Script v1.0.9
=======================================

Please choose a language:

e: English
j: Japanese (???)

>: e
I hit return after typing in “e”.

=======================================
Trusted Storage Recovery Script v1.0.9
=======================================

Please choose a language:

e: English
j: Japanese (???)

>: e

DISCLAIMER:

WARNING: Run at your own risk and make sure that ALL Adobe
products are closed and not running before you proceed further.

This tool has been developed to upgrade the licensing service
and repair a license file for Adobe Acrobat 8 and 9, and
Creative Suite 3 and 4 products.

Do you wish to cancel at this time so you can close any
open applications? [y/n]:
y