I needed to carpet a 20ft x 10ft building behind my house. I went to the Lowe's store and asked for a quote (after waiting 20 minutes for the one carpet employee to finish with the other customer). He gave me a rough estimate and said they would then send someone to give me the actual quote. The actual quote was much higher, but now I had already paid a non-refundable service fee for the guy to come out and measure the room.
I ordered the carpet and padding I wanted and they told me the week the guys would do the work and I needed to be available or have someone available to meet them. Since I work an hour from Florence, I asked my father to try and hang around the area that week so he could let them in. No call all week.
When I called Lowe's, she told me the contractor had fallen, broken his leg, and burned himself, and was in the hospital. I told her I was sorry to hear, but that was not my fault and was not fair to my father to leave him waiting around. This is when she became very belligerent to me at and accused me of being insensitive. I explained that a simple call informing me of the situation would have sufficed and I would have understood.
About two months after my initial visit, the carpet was finally installed and the wrong color carpet was put in. I called and said that they needed to come back out and put in the right color or offer me a discount on the price I paid. They offered me about 10% of the price and that was the best she could do. I asked for 50% off and she told me there was no way she could do that. I told her to send someone to replace it, then. She told me to give her a minute to talk to her manager, hung up, and called back in about 5 minutes and said 50% was agreeable.
Now from my experience at Lowe's, there is no way she could have gotten her manager, explained the situation, and gotten his permission to up the discount to 50% in less than five minutes. Basically my theory is Lowe's would have been fine with 50% discount all along versus paying a contractor to go back out plus the cost of new carpet, but she hoped I would take a 10% discount instead. So she hung up, waited five minutes, and called me back.
Horrible Customer Service every time I visited. Thank goodness we finally have a Home Depot to compete with them. Maybe it will get a little better.
ChemE golfer
Florence, South Carolina
U.S.A.