Home Depot (HD -2.4%) starts to equip more workers with mobile devices in order to help them...

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Sam Liu Comments (2772)
 
EITHER what workers or mobile devices for what, since customer service is non-existent, unless the check-out service people are counted.
21 Jun 2012, 02:17 PM Reply Like

jthorn5656 Comments (24)
 
Appearance, appearance, appearance. That is what it is all about. Mobile device is outstanding when processing long lines by using it to ring up sales. It is like an extension of a cashier. Also great for pricing and checking for availability. Define a situation as real, and it is real in its consequences. Mobile devices may complicate matters further though. Don't knock it if you ain't tried it. Seems like I have heard that cliche' somewhere before.
21 Jun 2012, 09:33 PM Reply Like

Sam Liu Comments (2772)
 
Apple Store has used mobile sales.

Many restaurants in Cn use remote ordering like on Treo-type devices for instant transmission to the kitchen and cashier.

Just the employee confusion and the lack of its wares at Home Depot make me wary of it. Home Depot was not this way 10 years ago.
22 Jun 2012, 10:06 AM Reply Like

etruelove Comments (5)
 
As having worked for the past 22.5 years at home depot. The main problem with technology is using bad decisions to bid on obsolete products.

Who in their right mind would get a device that can be used to do everything, except stay online when the phone rings. Customers want to be the center of attention at the store, but the system is set up to fail whenever the phone rings, the displays are too small to read both in font size and lines of view.

The basic knowledge of being in a department will trump mechanical knowledge recalled from a database. Some times the monies spent are a total waste due to restrictions placed on the user.

Before I was terminated last year for not meeting the quota of in house credit cards pushed onto the customer instead of working with the customer, I was the data expert at night due to the fact that management refused to learn the system, and how to fix problems. Instead they would give the image of the customer is not first and there was no official manual work around. Many times I had to do work around solutions for others as well as myself. The customer was satisfied, the data was corrected, and the technology refused to work without a help center ( who would reply to fax them the problem and they would fix it in 72 hours) if they were too swamped to fix the problem.

Technology is wonderful if it is used with a manual backup, not just depend on tech-toys to appear smart while the in house data took the damage in most cases
21 Jun 2012, 11:15 PM Reply Like

bdoeden Comments (51)
 
I don't know about other HD stores but my store has improved 100% since Nardelli was kick out to go and bankrupt Chrysler. Is the store perfect? Of course not. But they are kicking Lowes as-. HD business is up a lot in my store while nearby Lowes is down. They could use more qualified sales people and fewer lazy ones that don't do much. This improvement in technology hopefully would improve the productivity of the sales force.
22 Jun 2012, 12:13 PM Reply Like