Phillip Blan has been with Lowe’s for only a few months, but already his colleagues at the Lowe’s of Flower Mound, Texas call him their department “MacGyver.”
So, when a couple called to say they couldn’t get their new grill to start, Blan was an obvious choice to come to their aid. But he didn’t go it alone.
“This was a really interesting learning experience,” he said. “I was glad to have Jim there with me.”
He’s referring to his teammate, Jim Costigan, who heard from the department manager that customers who had bought a new stainless steel gas grill couldn’t get it started. This was the day before Easter, and the couple had invited family over for Easter lunch, which was to be prepared on their new grill. After many attempts to get it started, they had called off the holiday lunch at their home and made reservations at a restaurant.
It was disappointing for the new grill owners – and for Lowe’s staff.
“I felt really bad when I got the call because as soon as Jim told me that grill and the name of the customer, I realized I was the one who sold them the grill,” Blan added. “I was like, ‘OK, let’s see what we can do to make this work for them.’”
Making an extra effort
“Shawn Reinhardt is our department lead, and he has always created an atmosphere where customer service is the most important thing,” Costigan said. “Our department is exceptional when it comes to making sure people get what they want and that we’re on time with it. We really do make an extra effort.”
“As an example, maybe three or four weeks before this, Gary Dykes, our store manager, had asked me to make a house call to a customer who bought a lawnmower he couldn’t get started,” continued Costigan. “So, the day of the grill incident, our assistant store manager, Lisette Collier remembered we had already established a precedent for going out to help customers. Lisette asked if I’d be willing to make another house call for a grill. I said I needed to take someone with me and threw it out to the department. Phillip was the first to volunteer.”
They disassembled the display model to figure out how the internal mechanisms worked. Then, they reassembled the floor model and headed to the customer’s house with their department toolkit.
“They were awesome,” Blan said of the couple to whom they made the house call. “They had worked hard to solve the problem before calling us. They showed us everything they’d tried.”
“I’ve got to give the wife credit,” Costigan added. “She was Mrs. MacGyver. She had done her research, had gone on YouTube and was following along with every step that we were making.”
Blan and Costigan started taking the grill apart, bit by bit, just as they had the floor model. With a little elbow grease and a lot of teamwork, the pair got it going. “Everything ignited,” Costigan said. “It was fantastic.”
“They were a joy to work with,” he continued. “They were very friendly and upbeat. They never gave up, so we couldn’t, either.”
“It’s not normally part of our job description to go out for house calls,” Costigan said. “But we want to take care of the customer. And with the grill and the lawnmower, those customers are in here all the time. We see them regularly. We wanted to go the extra mile to help.”
