Hail Hail the Gang’s All Here!

So Joe the Installer Guy (formerly referred to as Joseph the Installer) arrived exactly on time this morning, along with his helper Reuben & Chris the Home Depot Field Inspector. Everyone is super friendly, & it seem like they know what they’re doing. In fact, Chris just fixed the doorknob on the door to the garage just because it was bugging him (it’s been bugging me for a while too, but I was going to wait until it finally fell off) :-

Joe agreed that all of the outside trim looks pretty bad, so he’s going to replace it. The really good news is that there doesn’t seem to be any water damage to the framing – hurray!!!!! Chris the Field Inspector Guy ran off to THD to pick up the trim.

It looks like they might need to pop off the interior trim (I thought they would, but Joe the Field Inspector swore they wouldn’t), so Reuben showed me what they want to do because he wanted to be sure that I’d know they’d be careful of the sheetrock.

Anyway, so here’s the mess they are trying to fix:

The downstairs window

The upstairs window

Construction begins.... (or destruction I guess)My trusty installer Joe

Oh Oh – we just hit our first snag… No one explained the difference between new construction & replacement windows to me. For some reason I assumed that if you are replacing a window that you have to use a replacement window. So even though I was replacing my casement windows with double-hungs, I thought that they’d look like my kitchen windows:

My existing kitchen windows

But it turns out that on a replacement window you have the whole frame to content with, plus a gap with 1/4 round moulding, so the window is *really tiny* and the trim on the outside is *really wide*

My teeny-tiny replacement window

Here it is photoshop'd to give an idea of how it will look finished

Guess what? You can put in a new construction window & it will look like my kitchen windows without all of the extra wood!

Loving The Home Depot At-Home Services Right Now!!!!

So Joe the installer & Reuben the Helper & Tammy the Project Manager & Mike the Production Supervisor to the rescue!!!!! Between all of them, they managed to find 2 new construction windows the right size in stock, & they’re going to put those in – HIP HIP HURRAY!!!! Mike had joked that we could put up plywood until the new windows come, & I said that was OK with me, but he said he’d never do that – all of a sudden I’m swimming in a sea of love for the Home Depot & all the people who work for them.

What makes this even more cool, is that the new construction windows come with their own outside trim, so now we don’t have to monkey around with wrapping the outside with aluminum, and the profile will look just like the wood on my other windows.

Sounds like they managed to catch Chris the Field Inspector, & he’s bringing them. Poor guy, Joe the Installer called him on the road to stop & make sure that they were vinyl/wood & not vinyl/vinyl which they are – not sure the screens are with them, but we can always worry about that later.

So here are my new, naked window openings waiting for the new windows to get here, and Joe the Installer & Reuben have gotten everything cleaner that it was before they got here (wow – I feel *really* bad about that)

Just waiting for the new windows!!!

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Update on my stupidity…

I have lost the license information, but I did find the piece of paper that had the installer’s name, and sure enough after listening to the voice mail again, that’s who called me. I feel better 🙂

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Well I feel Stupid…

I came home this evening, & found a voice mail from the installer. For some reason the name didn’t ring a bell, so I went looking for the license information I was given… AND CAN’T FIND THE DARNED THING!!!! AHHRRRGGGG!!!!!

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It appears all is well for my Saturday installation…

I heard from Mike the Production Supervisor today:

We just received confirmation that your windows have been delivered to our warehouse. The install is set for Saturday, 11/19, with the installers arriving between 8-10 am.

THD At-Home Services Scheduled Installation

I am very happy with how things are being handled now, but I seriously wonder what would be happening if I hadn’t chosen such a public forum for airing my complaints. for instance, I now have the Production Supervisor staying on top of things (and extremely well I might add), when Tammy the Project Manager (I think that’s her title) is supposed to be contacting me. I assume that they dropped her out of the loop since Mike is handling everything.

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Supposed far-end of installation time frame: November 10th

THD At-Home Services - Unsure why they are off-schedule

This is the far end of the time frame that Jim the in-home Sales Dude gave me for when my windows would be installed and functional. He said that it takes 4-6 weeks from the time that I sign the contracts (which I did back on September 29th). Now, if he or the folks in Atlanta hadn’t sat on the darned contracts until I sent a rather unpleasant email, this possibly could have been true…

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Originally Quoted Installation Date: October 27th

The Home Depot Sales Manager fibbed about the installation date

This is the date that Tom the Sales Manager gave me for when my windows would be installed (see https://homedepothomeservices.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/heard-from-a-manager/).  According to him, they would be in my house and functional 4 weeks from the date I signed the contracts, which was back on September 29th. Of course since then I have found out that this was a total fabrication.

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Finally checked out the installer…

Checked out the contractor

…and from what little I can find, I guess all is well. Joseph’s license checks out with the State of Connecticut, but unfortunately they don’t say how long someone has been licensed, only whether they are currently. His license expires on 11/30/2011.

I also looked at the company he operates under on the Better Business Bureau site, and it has been BBB accredited since 09/21/2010 and got a grade of “A-“. The BBB says that the rating is due to the “Length of time business has been operating.” That makes me a little less comfortable, since the company website (just a single page that doesn’t say much) claims “40 years of experience”. I also wonder about The Home Depot At-Home Service’s claim that all of their contractors have been with them for “a long time”.

In any event, I searched everywhere online for complaints related to either the company or Joseph and was unable to come up with anything, either positive or negative.

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Not a rant, just a suggestion…

Suggestions for THD At-Home Services

…for THD At-Home Services when it comes to customer satisfaction.

Looking back on how this project has gone so far, it seems that the 2 areas they should concentrate on are:

1. Ensuring that accurate information is being given to customers
2. Ensuring that emails/calls are returned, and returned in a timely fashion

ACCURACY

Regarding accurate information, I was given incorrect estimates on how long it would take to get the windows installed (unless the problem was in fact a delay in ordering my windows), and I was given incorrect information about whether or not the installers are subcontractors. This problem can be easily solved through adequate training.

RETURNING CALLS/EMAILS

As for ensuring that calls/emails are returned, a lot of my frustration stemmed from this:

• September 23: Called Jim the in-home Sales Dude and left him a message saying that I had some additional questions before signing the deal.
• September 26: Jim never called back (he later said his phone didn’t actually record the message), so I ended up having to call the main number and have someone else contact him.
• September 26: Jim the Sales Dude called me back, and said he needed to check his schedule and would call me back “tomorrow” (September 27)
• September 28, 9:30 AM: Jim never called back (again), so I shot off an email through the online system. Heard back from a bunch of people, & finally got my questions answered and my new appointment.
• September 29: Had my appointment with Jim, and Tom the Sales Manager said that he would get Joe the Inspector out to my house tomorrow (Friday, September 30)
• October 3: Despite Tom saying he would expedite things and have the inspector to my house on September 30, I didn’t hear from Joe the Inspector until today, and can’t get an appointment until October 6.
• October 6: Told Joe to check out the blog and to find out about my status updates. He never did either.
• October 8: Sent an email about the online status, and got a call from Tom the Sales Manager. He said he would call back in “a day or 2” but never did.
• October 10: Emailed Tammie the project Coordinator to see if my windows were actually ordered. she said she’d have Joe contact me. He never did.

Seriously guys, is that any way to do business? Any company I’ve ever worked for would fire me for such a lack of response.

If The Home Depot At-Home Services would implement a decent CRM system that included Smart Phone Apps, then all calls and emails could be funneled through the software. As a result, a record of customer inquiries would be kept with a time stamp, and a workflow would be set up to automatically remind THD employees to respond, and would allow customers to view their issue status online. If the response time is exceeded, the automated workflow would escalate the issue to someone else. Having Smart Phone Apps would guarantee that no Home Depot employee would ever tell a customer “I’m not near a computer”.  All employees should also receive training in using the systems to guarantee that they know what to do with them. By funneling all customer inquiries through this type of system would also allow the THD At-Home Services Technical Writer to populate an online Knowledge Base that could provide customers with accurate answers to commonly asked questions.

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Heard back from Mike this morning…

Home Depot At-Home Services

This morning I got an email from Mile the Production supervisor at THD At-Home Services, which helped to clarify some of the questions that I had in my previous post (see https://homedepothomeservices.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/so-heres-a-thought/)

In it he said:

The Field Inspector, FI, on duty will stop by in the morning for a job start. His schedule will determine how long he will stay but he will ensure the job proceeds as planned. The FI is a Home Depot employee.

Tammie will get the installer name and license numbers to you before the install. All workers on a crew are background checked and have a pictured badge identifying them as THD subcontractors.

Time to bump the grade up another notch, as the information was provided quickly and was actually useful.

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So here’s a thought…

Will my windows fall out?

…about the subcontractors. It now makes sense that the sales contract said that the installers are authorized to collect my final payment. It’s because they aren’t THD At-Home Services Employees.

But who the heck checks to see if they actually did the work? And did it correctly? Hey, I’m a home owner, now a home builder. The most I know is that I need to check (once the current casement windows are removed) for rot by jamming an awl into the framing to see if the water that rotted the sills has caused additional damage. And I suppose if I was a contractor I would know to check for other things… like whether or not the windows are about to drop out onto the ground in a stiff breeze…

So will someone authorized by THD At-Home Services actually come by the job site to make sure these folks aren’t complete idiots? I just sent an email to Mike the Production Supervisor to ask him this question…

UPDATE 2011/10/19: Got some answers this morning. Check out my post at https://homedepothomeservices.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/heard-back-from-mike-this-morning/

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