I rarely write about a retailer being a great place to shop. But I have to say I had a pleasant shock going to the new Lowes up here in the GTA earlier this week. I was quite embittered about home centres, having been to Rona a few days before, which had exactly ONE cashier checking out, oh, about 20 customers, during the busiest time of the day. Thank goodness we no longer hold their stock. I decided to give the new Lowes up here a try when I discovered they were the only store that apparently stocked what I was looking for. There are about half a dozen stores now in the Greater Toronto Area.
Our puppy has developed a bad habit of digging whatever she can get her paws on. The recent victims are a newly planted crabapple and a river birch. So I went looking for those fake mulch rings that you can place around trees, figuring the dogs would eat the real stuff. So you won’t believe what happened next. I drove to the Lowes. Then,
- I got a close parking spot. Typically, for us this is a harbinger of shopping-doom, but stay with the story anyway.
- I found a Lowes associate immediately (actually 2 of them, a more senior fellow, and a new employee)
- They escorted me to exactly what I was looking for
- They LOADED them into my cart WITHOUT being asked
- They asked me if there was anything else they could help me find. By this point, I was quite speechless. I managed to thank them, and staggered off.
- I wanted to shop for more garden merchandise – and they STILL had some, unlike my local Canadian Tire which has had bare wall in the seasonal area for at least 3 weeks
- At the check out, when one of my minor items wasn’t tagged, the clerk asked me the price, I told him the correct price, and he rung it through. Simple as that. No standing around like a fool waiting for a price check. He actually believed me! It sort of restored my faith in humanity. When was the last time a store clerk did that?
It was as it I’d fallen into an alternate universe, where home centres had STAFF that were POLITE and wanted to HELP.
I felt like that cheesy lady from Its a Wonderful Life. You know, the one who takes her kid to see Santa, and the Santa tells her to go to another department store that has the toy her kid wants. And she walks up to the store manager and says, “I’m going to be a loyal customer of yours from now on”.
I stopped myself from doing this, and decided to write this little blog instead. So guess what, Lowes? You sure as heck got my attention. And my business. And we drove to your store today, just to buy a new hose reel.
GO LOWES! Hope you kick Home Depot’s butt (and Rona’s too, after making me stand in line the other day and for having a cheeky clerk that called me by my first name, like he knew me, just because he swiped my credit card. And Canadian Tire’s too, for their lack of staff (and knowledge) up here in my neck of the Canadian woods and their excessive rushing of the seasons….)
The Northerngardener
(Copyright 2008 by the Northerngardener. Go ahead and link to me, just don’t copy me. )
