Multichannel home improvement merchant Home Depot will close three call centers for its home services business, affecting appoximately 950 jobs. Responsibility for helping customers set up appointments for installing doors and window treatments, among other home services, will be transferred to 550 stores that currently don’t offer the service in-store.
“Over the past year, Home Depot has been very public about the fact that our focus is on our core retail experience and improving the experience in-store,” said Steve Holmes, senior manager of communications for Home Depot.
The majority of Home Depot’s stores already provide such a service, according to Holmes.
Home Depot will close the call centers that have been handling these responsibilities on January 28. The affected call centers are in Tampa, FL, Dallas and Chicago. None of Home Depot’s other call centers will be impacted, Holmes said.
Amidst a collapsing housing market, Atlanta-based Home Depot said last month that sales for its fiscal third quarter totaled $19 billion, a 3.5% decrease from last year while comparable store sales declined 6.2%. Consolidated net earnings totaled $1.1 billion, or $0.60 per diluted share, compared with $1.5 billion, or $0.73 per diluted share, last year.
