At one Home Depot, Bumper Service is no Accident

Home Depot Paint Department Supervisor, Sean, from Store 1846 in West Sacramento, Calif., was behind the Paint desk when he saw a familiar face in the spray paint aisle. The customer was someone he knew well – she was a frequent shopper at the mom-and-pop hardware store where he used to work.

View a video about this customer service story on The Home Depot’s YouTube channel.

The sight of his 87-year-old friend looking at spray paint cans piqued his interest.

Sean went over to greet her and asked her what project she was working on with spray paint. She told him that she was in a fender-bender, she wasn’t hurt, but her front bumper was damaged. She couldn’t afford a new car, so she had bought the car for its salvage value from the insurance company. Then she had found a replacement bumper at a local scrap yard. There was just one problem: the bumper was the wrong color. She wanted to repaint the bumper and mount it herself.

“I asked her to wait a minute,” Sean said. “I wanted to see if we could take care of her, and I had a plan in mind.”

Sean enlisted Travis, a co-worker who knows a lot about car repair. Then he approached Home Depot Store Manager Ben Lister to get his approval. Ben listened to Sean’s plan, and after ensuring the repair was simply a cosmetic repair, he agreed that Sean could go ahead.

The customer was ecstatic and made plans to drop off the bumper the next day.

Sean gave the bumper a paint job with the matching spray paint color and left it to dry. A few hours later, the customer returned with her car for phase two of the plan. Sean and Travis removed the damaged bumper and mounted the new one.

When Sean walked her outside and showed her the repair, she started to cry. “I can’t believe you would do something like that for me,” she said.

The following day, the customer delivered homemade cookies to the Home Depot store associates – with her shiny new bumper leading the way. “I was trying to give her that small-time hardware store feeling that she was used to,” Sean said.

View a video about this customer service story on The Home Depot’s YouTube channel.

Home Depot Legends are selected weekly and announced internally to all Home Depot associates. The program rewards associates for specific examples of outstanding customer service. Once a month, Marvin Ellison, Home Depot’s EVP of U.S. stores, selects a Monthly Home Depot Legend winner.