Harbor Freight Customer Service.

[Tin Falcon]

First of all I will say this break room area is often an area to vent steam. And i will say we all have been disappointed with customer service from time to time.
This time a positive report.
Last evening I decided to use a coupon from my Home shop machinist Magazine and purchase a second HF Windsor design tool chest.
Kudos to my wife for being flexible and driving me to HF before our Dinner date.
To off to our local HF. So, I go in find the floor sample and see no signs of stock near the floor model. I find a very busy(literally walking circles around the store) but pleasant older knowable gentlemen who tells me they have been out of stock for three weeks.I am disappointed but not surprised. But I can get a rain check for the sale price. So he checks the computer and it shows two in stock . Checks the back room , no joy . checks the side stock upper shelf and there are two.So not a wasted trip.He fetches a ladder asks me which on I want then pulls down the box with less dings. I get to the checkout . And ask the nice young lady if she can just scan my coupon and not cut a hole in the page of my magazine. her response is yes, I can cross out the coupon. Very acceptable. Then she looks and said oh you can buy up to five, so you are fine. So not even a cross out.
I take the box to the parking lot inspect it in the back of my wife's car. There were a couple tiny dings blemishes on the top right corner front. but for 40% discount no worries.
So this time HF got the customer service right.
Tin

 

[MachineTom]

Tin, nice story, and with HF one of the few positive ones. I would like to add a similar ++ story.

I ordered online a woodworkers bench, it ships from CA to NJ. A week goes by, and on the day of delivery i get an email stating damaged in shipping return to warehouse.

So I call HF and they tell me that they will not ship another unit until the returned unit arrives back in CA. NO way, a week back and then a week out.

I repeatedly point out that I was not the one who called the damage it was the shipper who decided to return the piece. Upshot that day they shipped out another unit and it arrived in fine shape.

With a bunch of modification it is now the bench for a 10" Rockwell Lathe.

 

[hitandmissman]

I have bought a lot of tools from Harbor Freight and have had to problems. It is nice to know that they will take care of problems. On another note, I just bought their woodworking bench. Advertised as $139, I also had a coupon for 25% off one item. In the store they had it marked $169. So they excepted the coupon which saved me more than the coupon for $139. No complaints.

 

[Philjoe5]

Tin,
A great story and a good reminder that it's not the "badge" but the folks who you must deal with that make a difference. A few years back our local HF was a shambles. Poorly stocked shelves, employees with bad attitudes etc. I thought they were going to close and I stopped going there. About a year ago I needed an air line fitting on a Sunday morning and they were open so I stopped in. It was literally a completely different store. All the shelves were stocked, employees were helpful, friendly. So they got me back.

Cheers,
Phil

 

[RonGinger]

Years ago Harbor Freight was only a mail order place. It was a family owned business. A while ago I read that the father had turned the business over to his son, who started the major retail expansion. Father then sued to regain control because he thought the son had borrowed to much money for the stores. I never did read how that came out, but they sure are expanding. It has got to be costing a lot to do that, I wonder how profitable they are? They wold not be the first business to expand, then burst the bubble and collapse.

They just opened a store in Portland Maine- just 50 miles from me. it is a nice clean, bright place and the staff seems friendly. When I was there a major re-stock shipement had just arrived and the guy I talked to said they had a huge business for the grand opening and were working to get re-stocked.

They do have a lot of junk, but they also have some reasonable stuff at good prices. I don't think I would buy a big machine there- I just bought a Grizzly G0704 mill.

 

[ShopShoe]

Reading these posts made me curious, so I went to their website and find that they seem to be making changes there that could illustrate better customer focus and quality control. In visiting my local store, I notice that they are stocking more "supply" items that remain constant and some of the poorly-finished products have disappeared. Their employees may be busy, but they have often done as described: Scour the store to see if something I want is miss-located or still "in back" somewhere.

I think there may be a lesson for someone here in that two major "home center" type stores are located near the HF location and both of their customer service is declining along with the absence of employees that have any knowledge of the products they sell or even seem to care about my needs as a walk-in customer.

--ShopShoe

 

[Tin Falcon]

IMHO the Home center customer service is improving as well.
The home centers are also becoming more competitive in pricing in things like cordless electric tool. The price of the Porter Cable Oiless compressors has dropped something like $ 30. and these stores give me 10% off every day as a veteran (as long as I remember to ask for the discount)
I am disappointed in HD in that they seem to have discontinued the Husky brand 6-1 scew driver. And In an attempt to improve selection I feel cramped in the tool department and it seems harder to find things.

The one let down I have seen with harbor freight is the condition of floor samples. I can remember years ago looking at a floor model of the old wood tool chests . I pull out a drawer and the bottom is not there and the drawer frame twists. Last night my wife was looking at there wooded work benches the top had cracks and when she pulled out a drawer is almost fell apart.


HF has been using the logo great tools at a cheap price. I am seeing improvements.
Tin

 

[OrangeAlpine]

I have never had a problem at HF. Sales people have always been great.

Yes, some of the merchandise is crap, but just what can you expect when you pay less than five bucks for a set of ratchet wrenches? I've found their more realistically priced stuff to be of decent and sometimes very good quality.

Yesterday I had to return a defective battery operated drill. Walked out of the store with only two questions asked - "What's wrong with it?" and "Do you want a refund or another drill?" They also added a credit to my credit card. The price had decreased, so my cost decreased. Try fighting that!

Bill

 

[purpleknif]

I bought a 5000 watt generator there a while back. Got it home and couldn't pull the rope. No problem returning it the next day. Got a new store her about 5 miles in the other direction from the old store. You can at least get 2 people in an aisle in the new one.