Home Depot and the Tire Return

by Jessica
(Huntington Beach, CA, )

I work for The Home Depot and was learning about customer satisfaction and the importance of doing whatever we can to keep the customer happy. While being trained for the Returns desk, I was told this story...

A man came into Home Depot one day with a tire and asked to return it. The cashier explained to the man, "I'm sorry sir, but we can't return a tire."

The man said, "I bought my tires here but they wore out very quickly and I'm very unhappy with their short life span. I want to return them."

Again, the cashier calmly explained that we can't return tires here. He said, "Sir, The Home Depot has never sold tires and we can't return it."

The man asked to speak to a manager. The manager, who was all for customer service, asked the man how much he had paid for the tires. When the man told him the exact amount, the manager opened a till and gave the man his money back.

The cashier, baffled, asked the manager why he had given the man money back, when obviously The Home Depot doesn't, and never has, sold tires. The manager explained to the cashier that the customer is always right, and we want to do everything we can to keep our customers happy.

A week later, after some research, the manager found out that before that specific Home Depot store was there, a tire store had been in it's place.