Great Customer Experience Defines the Brand

Thank you Home Depot. Yes, I am thrilled with a big box store. I often rant about how a brand is so much more than a logo – it is the promise made to customers. It doesn’t start and end with a discussion of which color or type face to use. It’s about the verbal, visual and emotional attributes that define a company and set it apart from the competition.

It is about the customer experience that gets consistently created. It is about the values a company holds. Sometimes these values are spoken. Sometimes these values make it into a slogan. But more often than not they don’t – and that’s okay as long as those values are reflected in the customer experience.

Home Depot delivered (literally) and has earned my brand loyalty.

Last weekend. Saturday. A house full of guests. My microwave craps out.

I Google “Home Depot Allentown” on my Blackberry. The phone number instantly pops up, one click and I have customer service on the line. I get clear, immediate answers to my questions about delivery, what’s on sale, installation and removal. Contrast this with another big box store where I sat on hold for 5 minutes, got transferred, got disconnected, had to call back, sat on hold and couldn’t quite get a straight answer once I got through.

So I pack up the family and head to Lehigh Street. Within three minutes, I find the associate I spoke with, he narrows down our selection to two. It’s on sale. Delivery is free. Installation is on special for only $50 as he promised on the phone. A computer screen shows me all the available times for delivery. I can’t be there during the week for the install? How about Saturday. Morning. Between 9am and 10am.

They show up at 9am on the dot. In and out in 20 minutes. Old one hauled away.

Home Depot made this a seamless and painless experience. They gave me a good product, excellent value and more importantly, let me keep a good chunk of my weekend. No running around town. No haggling. No struggling to do an installation on my own because they made it a no-brainer to have them do it. No sitting around for an entire day part waiting for them to show up. They followed through on their brand promise and that is a powerful message to send.