Lowe's Doubles Down on Customer Dis-Service

So the saga finally played out this past Sunday.

What saga, you may ask?

This saga:

"I had to learn from the nice lady on the phone that their rule is that they can't send items out for delivery on the same day, and that tomorrow's deliveries are already booked."

As one might imagine, I was unconvinced that the rocket surgeons at Lowe's would actually come through with the promised Sunday delivery, so I started calling the store a little after 8:00 in the morning. I was told that they were still loading, and to try again later. Knowing that if the truck left the store without my oven there was zero chance of delivery that day, I called again at 9:00 and 10:00. Each time I was put off, and it wasn't until after 11:00 that I was able to confirm that the oven was, in fact, out for delivery.

Again, there was zero effort to reach out to me until after noon, when Shawn called to tell me that the oven would be delivered between 2:00 and 4:00. Had I not diligently called that morning, I wouldn't have known.

To his credit, Shawn arrived on-time.

I cannot stress enough how badly Lowe's screwed this up, with zero communications from the time of the order until a few hours before delivery.

But wait, it gets "better."

What's most remarkable may be that I would have *bet money* that Lowe's couldn't make this already dreadful experience worse, and I would have lost that bet:

Last evening, a corporate critter called to "reach out to me" and to apologize for the "miscommunication," and to assure me that they were reviewing their processes to make sure this wouldn't happen again. I assured him that there was no miscommunication since there was no actual communication to begin with.

I also assured him that there was no likelihood of it happening again to me, since we will never buy another big ticket item from Lowe's, and that we would diligently work to ensure that none of our family or friends do, either.

He never asked for details of our story, just kept saying "I want to reach out" and "I want to make sure you know." Nothing says "we care" like completely ignoring the customer's concerns while focusing on corporate strategies.

I assured him that I couldn't care less, and that the only thing I wanted to hear was how they proposed to change my mind about any potential future sales.

One can imagine how that went.

He did make some vague offer of gift cards (which just means money they'd be recirculating to their corporate coffers). I of course demurred, and gave him the opportunity to make a cash bid. He just said that was up to in-store management (whom we already know is incompetent).

So, we have a very nice new oven, installed by my guy, and Lowe's has lost a heretofore loyal customer (and hopefully many more).

Nicely played!