Home Depot is letting go of a traditional store feature and introducing a new customer support system.
The retailer is replacing their old-school phone menus with an AI-powered voice agent to provide support for customer calls four times faster, according to the company.
“Say ‘bye’ to the traditional phone menu,” Home Depot wrote in a news release.
Rather than waiting through a list of options, customers can now state why they’re calling in their own words to be redirected.
Home Depot noted that they’re making this change because “nobody likes being trapped in a phone menu when they have a project or job to finish.”
The new system reportedly takes less than 10 seconds for the AI agent to determine exactly why a customer is calling.
Customers will apparently reach a solution four times faster with this new AI-powered support compared to traditional phone menus.
Home Depot noted that the system is grounded in The Home Depot’s product catalog and proprietary knowledge.
Using customers’ project descriptions, the AI voice agent will be able to build a ready-to-buy digital shopping cart based on real-time inventory with all the necessary items they would need for their project.
The system can initiate service requests, text product links to pre-filled cars and help complete purchases over the phone.
The agent is trained to resolve common inquiries from start to finish, such as checking an order status, confirming product availability and providing store information. It also provides real-time translations for multilingual support.
Home Depot noted that there will always be a “direct path” to a human associate.
“Using customer service AI voice agents, we’re moving away from ‘please listen to these options’ and toward ‘how can I help?’ ” Jordan Broggi, executive vice president of customer experience and president of online, said in a statement.
“AI does a tremendous job at recognizing customer intent and taking direct action to help complete a purchase or even start a service request. And of course, if they need to speak with an associate, we’ll quickly connect them.”
The new AI voice agent is built on Google Gemini for Customer Experience and powered by the latest Gemini conversational AI audio models.
“The Home Depot is a prime example of how retailers and large enterprises can use AI to move beyond automation and deliver real customer value at scale,” Darshan Kantak, vice president, Applied AI, Google Cloud, said.
“By integrating Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience capabilities, The Home Depot isn’t just directing traffic or routing calls—it is instantly understanding a customer’s true intent and applying the reasoning of an expert associate to find solutions.”
Home Depot put a pilot program in 50 stores that proved the system’s efficiency and success. Pilot stores reported higher job satisfaction as associates were able to spend more time focusing on in-store shoppers, the company said.
Over the coming year, the company plans to expand the AI customer service voice agent system to all U.S. stores.
