Long known for providing professional customers with a full range of construction tools, The Home Depot has now launched a free program offering powerful business-boosting tools. The program, called The Home Depot Business ToolBox, puts a wide range of discounted business products and services at your fingertips.
The Home Depot Business ToolBox provides professional contractors and other businesses with exclusive access to discounts on business services you may already use every day, from dumpster rentals to business insurance. The program also offers online management tools, such as payroll processing and training courses, that provide information and resources to help run a more efficient business.
“We wanted to go the extra mile and offer something else to help our customers manage their businesses,” says Juan Morales, business analyst in The Home Depot Pro Business Group.
One-Stop Shopping The Business ToolBox program offers a wide range of products and services through partnerships with industry-leading vendors such as Sprint, Dell, FedEx and many others. Offers include office supplies, shipping, logo wear, moving and storage solutions, wireless telecommunications, computers and payroll processing, to name a few. Even business insurance and health insurance for individuals, families and employees are available.
The partner businesses were carefully selected after an extensive process of national surveys and screenings. “As far as I understand there’s nothing else like this in the market where you can get all these savings and services under one umbrella,” says Morales. “It’s great one-stop shopping.”
Professional customers may be able to get better rates on services they’re already using, such as Sprint wireless communications, or on standard business services that need upgrading or replacement. For example, Ronald McFall, owner of Columbia, Tennessee-based Southern Heating & Air Conditioning, signed up for the program after shopping around for new business insurance and realizing that he could get the best deal through Business ToolBox partner BB&T Insurance Services. “They gave me a good rate,” he says. “I saved about $400 for the year.”
The program also gives access to services that members may not have considered before. “I’ve spoken with contractors who say they find the online training courses through
RedVector very interesting, and that they hadn’t even seen something like this before,” says Morales.
Easy Enrollment Launched in 2006, the Business ToolBox program already has over 40,000 members enrolled.
Enrollment is free, and signing up takes only a few minutes. Once enrolled, members can start taking advantage of the benefits of the Business ToolBox immediately. Customers can sign up online at www.hdbusinesstoolbox.com (English only), or over the telephone by calling (866) 333-3099, a toll-free number with service available in Spanish and English. According to current plans, the Business ToolBox website will be available in Spanish by late 2008.
“If you make that call, the first prompt asks you if you want English or Spanish, so the door is being opened to our Spanish-speaking customers to get more information,” says Morales. “And for the most part, most of the vendors have Spanish-speaking representatives who can take care of these customers in their own language. That’s a great feature of the program.”
Another sign-up option, he adds, is to enquire at a Home Depot Contractor Services Desk, where an associate can call for you and put you on the phone to complete the enrollment.
“We definitely want to encourage the contractor owners to be part of the Business ToolBox,” says Morales. “It’s a great opportunity for them to save, get services they were looking for or couldn’t find before, and get better at their own business.”
13 Ways to Lower Your Costs Businesses and their typical discounts for Business ToolBox members
| Business | Typical Discount* |
| BB&T Insurance Services | Competitive rates on business insurance |
| BenefitProtect | Health insurance products and rates not available on the open market |
| Corporate Express | Save 12% on office supplies, plus free shipping |
| Dell Dell | Save up to 12% on computer systems
|
| The Home Depot Dumpster Rentals | Save 5%
|
| FedEx | Save up to 16% on select shipping
|
| FedEx Kinko’s | Save up to 20% on select printing and copying services
|
| The Home Depot Gift Cards | Volume discounts and free shipping
|
| PrimePay | Save 30% on payroll and tax-filing services
|
| PODS | Save up to 10% on moving and storage solutions
|
| RedVector | Save up to 35% on online construction courses (English only)
|
| Sprint | Save 10% on monthly service |
| Threads | Save an average of 28% on logo wear |
*Products and services are provided by the above services providers and not The Home Depot. The Home Depot does not sponsor, endorse, guarantee or warrant these services in any way. Savings statements are based on average pricing from each partner. Actual customer savings will vary. Certain restrictions apply. Visit www.hdbusinesstoolbox.com or call (866) 333-3099 for complete terms and conditions for the typical discounts listed above.