Home Repairs

In the 1970s, some people I knew in New Jersey were approached by their cousin Bernie to invest in a venture he was developing. Bernie had a history of “can’t miss” deals that missed, so the cousins passed.

What they passed on was the ground floor of Home Depot, the Bernard Marcus-Arthur Blank venture that made its initial stockholders multi-millionaires.

Today’s stockholders are not nearly as infatuated. And in the last couple of years, they’ve used the annual meeting to vent. It was thought to be the volume of their displeasure that led, finally, to the departure of ceo Robert Nardelli in 2007. But that hasn’t fed the beast, as Nardelli’s successor, Frank Blake, is discovering. This year’s annual meeting in May was acrimonious again. And whereas in past years they raged about the divergent directions of the company’s stock price and the executives’ take-home pay, this year’s complaint had to do with the way the stores are run – a very new issue for the world’s largest home-supplies retailer.

They complained about poor experiences they’d had in Home Depot stores, how some employees don’t seem well-trained in the store’s products and try to avoid contact with customers. “They don’t see you or they don’t want to see you,” one shareholder said.

Making shoppers feel comfortable and well-served in the enormity of their surroundings has always been one of the challenges of big-box retailing. Wal-Mart put greeters at the front door to welcome shoppers and answer questions. I think those greeters were less effective than the price-savings on every shelf. Besides, how much service do you need to buy paper towels, bedding or a bottle of shampoo? But as Wal-Mart has become more active in specialized product categories, such as consumer electronics, it has found customer service more challenging. Best Buy has proved that the knack for serving the technology customer is the key to the kingdom.

Home Depot has always had a big service need to fill. Most weekend do-it-yourselfers walk into the big warehouse space confused about what they need, where to go and how to decide what to buy. For years, the smiling folks in the orange aprons were always around and unusually responsive. I think it’s what made Home Depot so successful.

Not so much anymore. Too much lately, my visits to Home Depot are spent in search of fewer and fewer orange aprons and getting more and more “that’s not my department” shrugs. One guy working in the gardening department recently told my wife and me, “Sorry, I don’t know much about gardening.” Silly us for asking. Maybe someone at Lowe’s does.