Home Depot 2015 Annual Report Download - page 5

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online and job tracking of purchases across all forms of payment. This program, introduced in fiscal 2013, has
continued to gain traction, with almost 4 million customers enrolled by the end of fiscal 2015.
We also recognize that our Pros have differing needs depending on the type of work they perform. Our goal is to
develop a wide spectrum of solutions for all of our professional customers, such as supplying both recurring MRO
needs and core building materials to large-scale property managers and providing inventory management solutions
for our traditional Pro customers. We believe developing a unified approach to service all the needs of our Pros will
differentiate us from competitors who are solely traditional retail, installation or MRO companies.
We help our DIY, DIFM and Pro customers finance their projects by offering private label credit products in our stores
through third-party credit providers. We also help certain of our Pros through our own programs. In fiscal 2015, our
customers opened approximately 3.2 million new The Home Depot private label credit accounts, and at fiscal year end the
total number of The Home Depot active account holders was approximately 12 million. Private label credit card sales
accounted for approximately 23% of sales in fiscal 2015. In addition, in the U.S. we re-launched our private label credit
program at the end of fiscal 2015 with additional benefits, including a 365-day return policy for all of our customers and
commercial fuel rewards and extended payment terms for our Pros.
Our Associates. Our associates are key to our customer experience initiative. As noted above, we empower our associates to
deliver excellent customer service through our Customer FIRST training program, and we strive to remove complexity and
inefficient processes from the stores to allow our associates to focus on our customers. In fiscal 2015, we began to roll out a
number of new initiatives to improve freight handling in the stores, as well as Project Sync, which is discussed in more detail
below under "Logistics". All of these programs are designed to make our freight handling process more efficient, which
allows our associates to devote more time to the customer experience and makes working at The Home Depot a better
experience for them. We also have a number of programs to recognize stores and individual associates for exceptional
customer and community service.
At the end of fiscal 2015, we employed approximately 385,000 associates, of whom approximately 24,000 were salaried,
with the remainder compensated on an hourly or temporary basis. To attract and retain qualified personnel, we seek to
maintain competitive salary and wage levels in each market we serve. We measure associate satisfaction regularly, and we
believe that our employee relations are very good.
Interconnecting Retail. In fiscal 2015, we continued to enhance our customers’ interconnected shopping experiences through
a variety of initiatives. Our associates used second generation FIRST phones, our web-enabled handheld devices, to help
customers complete online sales in the aisle, expedite the checkout process for customers during peak traffic periods, locate
products in the aisles and online, and check inventory on hand. We have also empowered our customers with improved
product location and inventory availability tools through enhancements to our website and mobile app, and we have invested
heavily in content improvements such as videos, ratings and reviews, and more detailed product information. These
enhancements are critical for our increasingly interconnected customers who research products online and then go into one of
our stores to view the products in person or talk to an associate before making the purchase. While in the store, customers
may also go online to access ratings and reviews, compare prices, view our extended assortment and purchase products.
We continued to make enhancements to our special order process in fiscal 2015 with our new Customer Order Management
platform ("COM"), which was introduced in fiscal 2014. This platform is designed to provide greater visibility into and
improved execution of special orders by our associates and a more seamless and frictionless experience for our customers.
After COM is rolled out to all U.S. stores, which we expect to occur by the end of fiscal 2016, store associates, suppliers and
customers will be able to access relevant special order information online, regardless of where the order was placed. In
addition, we have three online contact centers to service our online customers’ needs.
We also recognize that customers desire greater flexibility and convenience when it comes to receiving their products and
services. In fiscal 2015, we began to roll out Buy Online, Deliver From Store ("BODFS"), which complements our existing
interconnecting retail programs: Buy Online, Pick-up In Store ("BOPIS"), Buy Online, Ship to Store ("BOSS") and Buy
Online, Return In Store ("BORIS"). We expect to complete the roll out of BODFS by the end of fiscal 2016. We will continue
to blend our physical and digital assets in a seamless and frictionless way to enhance the end-to-end customer experience.