Home Depot has changed their tagline from More Saving. More Doing. to: How Doers Get More Done. The previous slogan update took place in 2009, when it was changed from You can do it. We can help.
How Doers Get More Done. This will take some getting used to. But first, what does it mean? Why did they make the change? I’m sorry, we have no idea.
ToolGuyd only learned about the new slogan because Home Depot’s affiliate program sent out a broad email newsletter asking websites to update their branding with the new slogan, and I haven’t found any insights beyond that.
I had a Home Depot contact that I could ask about things like this, but they left the company and the new “social media specialist” I was told would be our contact moving forward has not replied to my emails in recent months.
Home Depot’s 3rd party “influencer marketing” firm that we used to talk to back when ToolGuyd was a “Home Depot PROspective” partner broke silence with us recently, but only to ask me to update our Black Friday links. I would ask them about the slogan, but they haven’t replied to my emails in recent months either.
As an aside, why isn’t ToolGuyd a Home Depot PROspective review partner anymore? Good question, and one I still don’t have an answer to. Maybe ToolGuyd wasn’t sycophantically exciting or “socially influential” enough? Sorry, I digress.
The point is this – Home Depot has a bold new slogan, and I wish I could tell you what it means, or what kinds of customer-facing improvements – if any – are behind it, but there’s nobody at Home Depot for us to ask.
What will this new marketing strategy mean for YOU? *shrug* I wish I knew.
What is changing (or has changed) at Home Depot that will lead “doers” to Home Depot to “get things done?”
Is this just a marketing thing? Or will there be a related initiative to improve customer experiences?
Oh, there’s a video!
I still don’t get it. “It’s a good time to be a doer.” Because… my phone… will tell me what and where “that thing” is?
Right now Home Depot’s website is supposed to tell me where something is stocked and how many they have, but that hasn’t been working out very well for me recently.
I went to Home Depot in November looking to buy Milwaukee LED flashlights. Two associates couldn’t find them, despite the website saying they were in stock and on the sales floor.
I went to Home Depot Black Friday weekend, looking to take advantage of promo pricing on a Stanley PowerLock tape measure 2-pack special buy. I walked around the entire store with my small kid – twice – and couldn’t find them anywhere. The tool department manager couldn’t locate them. Another associate reported seeing a loose 2-pack somewhere in the gift center, but the three of us couldn’t track them down.
But, the website said the store had 16 of them in stock.
Well, at least I didn’t leave the store empty-handed – I got some buckets and a couple of Hot Wheels cars to reward my very patient kid.
The website never remembers my location. Even when I sign in, it ignores any attempt for me to set a default or preferred store location. Home Depot’s mobile site always directs me to the wrong store, and a couple of times last month they defaulted me to a store in a different state.
When there’s a problem with an online order, and I’ve had a few issues this year despite only placing a couple of orders, Home Depot’s customer service is more time-consuming than competitors’ (such as Amazon). When I ordered fasteners and received a busted box of screws, I just taped it together rather than dealing with the hassle of a return-reorder.
If you can’t run to the store, the store will run to you. Sure, but Home Depot really needs to pack their orders better.
They sent me a screen protector instead of a Ryobi hammer that I really needed quickly, and it set my editorial schedule back by quite a bit. I tried buying a plastic sheet that you fold together to hold paper and plastic bags open, and it arrived broken – again. The first time I tried to buy one was after Travis’ review, and that one arrived cracked and broken too.
With that Ryobi hammer and screen protector issue, it took a 12 minute phone call to fix things, and I also had to go through the hassle of returning the incorrect item. Do you know how long that would take Amazon to remedy? Maybe 30 seconds to a minute. Amazon also has a chat option when needed.
Garden hose washers? The website said they’re in stock. I finally went to the store to pick up a pack and the peg was empty. I checked my phone, and the inventory count was still wrong.
I wanted a sink drain stopper, and the size I needed was said to be available. I went to the store, and they didn’t have that size.
Frankly, I like shopping at Home Depot, and have had many more positive in-store experiences than negative ones. But when it comes to shopping online, Home Depot is far from my first choice. Sometimes they’re the only option or simply offer much lower pricing.
My online shopping experiences have not been problem-free, but my issues were resolved. I don’t order from Home Depot’s website as much as from other online tool dealers, but they’ll continue to get a share of my business.
But unless an item is exclusive to Home Depot’s online store, or substantially lower priced, other online retailers do a much better job of helping this “doer” get things done.
If Home Depot’s new tagline is How Doers Get More Done, how are they going to act on that to make it truer?
A reader emailed in recently, expressing dissatisfaction that his Husky tool warranty-exchange attempt was turned down at their store. I spoke to a Husky manager, and they conveyed that the reader should have had a very different experience.
How will Home Depot’s website or app help with Husky tool warranties or exchanges? Home Depot advertises that their app can try to guess what item you’re looking for based on a photo, but how will it help with associate confusion about Home Depot’s own house-brand policies? Husky hand tools are supposed to have a hassle-free warranty.
Home Depot changing their slogan after 10 years seems like a big deal to me. Maybe it’s supposed to be self-explanatory?
How Doers Get More Done. I guess we’ll have to see what this ends up meaning for customers, if anything.
