Coast-to-Coast Effort Saves Local Business from Flooding

Home Depot associates in California and Massachusetts teamed up last week to help a customer battling the massive flooding in New England. Rising waters were threatening to destroy his business as each minute passed.The customer initially called his local Home Depot store in Danvers, Mass., to see if the store was selling sandbags. He needed a bunch – fast. But it was 11 p.m., and all area stores were closed for the night. Then he realized that stores in California still were open, so he took a shot at seeing if a Home Depot associate on the West Coast could get in touch with a colleague closer to his business in Danvers.

Home Depot store 6647 in Anaheim, Calif., took the call, and that kicked off a flurry of phone calls and BlackBerry messages about this customer’s plight in the middle of the night. Store manager Rob Dumas reached out to his district manager, Charles Bayer. Charles e-mailed merchandising vice president Pete Capel, who brought regional merchandise manager Kennet Johansson into the loop.

Kennet started working the phones and reached Frank, an operations assistant manager from Home Depot store 2686 in Salem, a 20-minute drive from the customer. Things moved quickly, and by 1 a.m., Frank and Ben, a department supervisor, had finished loading a truck with sandbags and other supplies. Ben then delivered the goods to the very grateful customer, whose business was spared from the rising flood waters.

“This is a great example of how Customers FIRST works across the entire Company, where West Coast and East Coast work together to service the needs of our customers,” said Paul Deveno, regional vice president.

Kudos to all involved – the sun never sets on excellent customer service!