The Value of Employee Empowerment

So I went to Lowes last night (notice a re-occurring theme here? It’s both a blessing and a curse that I have a Lowes within 5 miles of my house!), to pick up some lumber to build my stand-up desk.

I could build the whole thing with 5 cuts out of a small piece of plywood, so I grabbed a 4′ x 4′ sheet and off I went. Unfortunately, I only made it to the parking lot because the sheet of plywood wouldn’t fit in my car (I’d fault Ford, but I suppose the Focus wasn’t designed with much lumber-hauling functionality in mind)!

I went back into the store to have them cut the board in half (which, as a bonus, would also save me one cut later), but the saw was broken. The associate brought me to where I found the plywood and showed me that I could pick up two 4′ x 2′ pieces (essentially my first piece cut in half), so I picked these up and headed over to the register.

Now, the two separate pieces were a few dollars more than the one solid piece, but I shouldn’t have to pay extra for the two pieces because the cause of the problem (aside from the board not fitting into my car) was that their saw was broken.

Nevertheless, I didn’t say a word as I was checking out, and as the cashier was processing the return she said “I didn’t charge you any extra, because our saw was broken”.

Here’s why I loved this so much: I used to work in retail and I couldn’t do anything without calling my manager to the register: no discounts, no sales, no nothing! This employee, however, was able to use her judgement and apply a discount at the register. It wasn’t a huge discount (I know that managers are still needed for those), but I love the fact that the company trusts her (and the rest of their employees) enough to allow them the freedom to give small discounts without having to create a whole ordeal and call the manager over.

Thumbs up, Lowes! You’re winning me back! Now just fix your sign!!!

(…and, for those of you who are interested, here is my cheap, yet effective stand-up desk. Day 3 and loving it!!!)

Lowes Fail

A Yale research team did a study on monkeys & the concept of money and found, among other things (and please pardon my oversimplification) that the vast majority of the monkeys tested preferred to knowingly get less with a 50% chance of getting extra as a bonus than getting more with a 50% chance of  getting that extra taken away.

Even though 50% of the time the monkeys ended up with the same amount, the monkeys preferred a potential bonus instead of a potential loss (and this, of course, is a real-life example of the concept of loss aversion).

This brings me to my picture of the day:

Come on, Lowes!!! What are numbers 3 and 6 of your “Customer Service Comes First” sign?!?!? (And why don’t you have the decency to give your Spanish-speaking customers the respect of using a tape color that matches the background color of their portion of your sign?!?!)

This has to be #1 in the “how to lose (or at least greatly dissatisfy) customers” handbook!

A better move on Lowes’ part would be to take the sign down temporarily and get it printed without numbers 3 and 6, but don’t make such a public display about how there are services that you are not willing to do for your customers!

… Disappointing.