Gone, for the most part, is the piercing beep of the forklift.
Aisles cluttered with pallets are an oddity.
Bulging stacks of goods have been reduced to mere molehills. In its newest experiment to boost customer service, Home Depot is taming the bustle in its warehouse stores and redirecting its orange-aproned troops. After-hours crews have taken over stocking and other store tasks, giving shoppers more room to roam and daytime employees more time to focus on customers. The customer service campaign, being tested in all metro Atlanta stores and in central Florida, has been in the works for two years, Mercer said. But now, with more than 1,000 stores and about 1 billion transactions a year, Home Depot finds it needs to rein in the action - and revive slacking customer service.