As a bit of departure from my blog, I am posting about a problem we have had getting our KitchenAid dishwasher delivered from Home Depot, which we ordered on April 19th via their online store. We have not received the dishwasher yet, but have spent many hours on the phone contacting them, sending emails, messaging and posting on Facebook etc.
Per their website, Home Depot corporate talks “about” how important the customer is, and they show a model I’m copying from their corporate “About us” web page showing the customer is at the top of the inverted model. From my experience this could be nothing from the truth.
We don’t normally complain (rather normally praise great service) and never complain on social media such as Facebook, but the circumstances of this have truly been the epitome of poor customer service. We are having major home remodeling done, and the smaller companies we have dealt with have been awesome. Home Depot (on-line appliance division) however, is not customer service oriented at all, even though their web site claims they are. Even though I wrote a post on their web page, it did not show up as Home Depot must monitor what is posted, and probably understandably so. Still, I was able to post this via a reply post on another customer’s post with a similar problem, and also sent a message via their Face Book messenger page.
Enough said; here is my message post to Home Depot. Will monitor any developments as they happen. . .
It’s Friday evening May 22 (Memorial Day weekend) as I write this, and still do not have the $1,000 dishwasher my partner ordered on April 19th. The original delivery date was April 29. We also paid extra for the delivery and 5 year maintenance making this a $1379 purchase. I’ll be brief as I can be in this post, but as you can see it’s been nothing but a frustrating series of events. I originally had a delivery on April 29th. (Installer said he couldn’t turn off hot water at the sink so he couldn’t install the dishwasher. He left the dishwasher in the box in our garage where it’s been sitting for nearly a month). We called a plumber the next day at our expense and he adjusted the valve in our sink to turn off. We were going to have the plumber then install our dishwasher, but the plumber (who we know personally as it’s a neighbor’s company) said he couldn’t install the dishwasher as the KitchenAid dishwasher delivered from Home Depot had a ‘factory damaged water valve’. He did as a courtesy remove our old dishwasher (not the new one in the garage), which we had paid the installer to remove after the new one was installed. We called the Home Depot service 800 line and after going thru the menu of options, we pressed the option for damaged equipment. This connected us to Whirlpool, the maker of Kitchen Aide. On Friday afternoon May 1, the Whirlpool rep said they would put in for a replacement dishwasher and we would be contacted within 2 days for the new delivery date. We didn’t get a call until May 6 (it was an automated call, not a live person and not sure if it was Whirlpool or Home Depot), but the new dishwasher would be delivered on Friday May 15th. Then on Thursday afternoon May 14th, we got a phone call from Whirlpool apologizing that the deliver they had scheduled for May 15 has been delayed, and the new delivery date was Saturday May 23 (which would be tomorrow). Today, Friday afternoon May 22, we had not heard anything about our scheduled delivery for tomorrow as we were told we would get a call the day prior to delivery. We initiated a call to Home Depot, and while the rep and later resolution specialist I spoke to were quite nice (I don’t blame them for this screw-up and they were very professional) they informed me the delivery had been canceled, and now rescheduled until Friday May 29th! The HD rep called Whirlpool to find out what was up with the order, and the delivery company assigned to our order WENT OUT OF BUSINESS! So now the delivery company is reassigned to another company and the first opening is Friday May 29th, which I’ll believe when I see it. The resolution person said they could possibly get it here sooner, but it’s a holiday weekend so the earliest they can speak with someone is Tuesday. So in summary here we are on a holiday weekend, washing dishes and grill utensils by hand, while we stare at a four foot hole in our kitchen counter where the dishwasher should go. Unfortunately I have a broken neck by the way and am in a full neck and chest brace while it heals, so it makes even the simple tasks more difficult. My partner has been doing the dishes and everything else, but this takes added time and space in the kitchen, not to mention the first broken dishwasher occupying space in the garage where he would park. This sounds like a total breakdown in communication between Home Depot, Whirlpool and the delivery staff. What concerns me even more is how the service will be when I paid for a premium product, delivery, and a 5 year maintenance plan. This is not what I expect from a normally very good company we have used for years. There was a failure to communicate with us even today and we’ve been looking forward to having a nice dishwasher (thus saving time) this holiday weekend. Did Home Depot not know this delivery company went out of business, and/or were they going to bother to call and let us know we are delayed one more week? And when the delivery shows up will the new installers know how to install this properly or do we need to hire the plumber again? I’m sorry to be so long, but this is beyond frustrating service.
UPDATE:
July 3, 2020
Still no dishwasher delivered, but we canceled the order from Home Depot after our promised delivery of this past Saturday (May 30th) was also delayed. When I say delayed, this delivery as well as the last 3 other deliveries have actually been “no shows”, meaning no one showed up to deliver the dishwasher, nor did anyone call to say there was a problem. On this latest delivery date we had been told by the “resolution specialist” that the dishwasher had been shipped to the local warehouse, and would be delivered the next day (Saturday). We had explained our frustrations about non-delivery including the previous Memorial Day weekend non-delivery, but we were assured we would receive the dishwasher the next day (Saturday).
Well, Saturday comes and goes, and of course we didn’t get the dishwasher. We did get a call on Saturday afternoon however from the “delivery company” asking what time they could come by to pick up the defective dishwasher! Pick it up, we asked, you must mean deliverer the new one? The man we spoke with had no idea about the new dishwasher, but was only going to pick up the old one, to which we said no thank you, but find out about the new one. He said he would call the office and they would call back. Of course we never got a call back all weekend, or even on Monday.
Final straw: On Tuesday we call Home Depot’s customer care number, and ended up being transferred once again to the Resolution Department. We ended up getting transferred to our local store, even though we ordered the dishwasher online at HomeDepot.com. Of all people we spoke with, the gentleman at our local store was by far the most helpful. He apologized, researched the problem, and called us back within the hour. Apparently someone along the chain of events since April 19th, had CANCELED OUR ORDER THREE WEEKS AGO! That’s right, even as we had been assured of our last two deliveries on May 23 and May 30th, they could have never shown up since the order was CANCELED. The order was canceled, but we were never informed (only encourage we would receive the dishwasher), and our money was never refunded.
Enough said. We asked for a refund and DOS went online and ordered a new dishwasher from KitchenAid directly. It is due to be delivered this Friday June 5, while the earliest Home Depot could do by creating a NEW order would be June 10th. No brainer we chose KitchenAid direct; wish we had thought about that fist.
Unlike Home Depot, we got a call from a KitchenAid representative the very next day to confirm our delivery date for Friday. Will post the results soon!