As you can imagine, we spend a lot of time at Lowe’s, because it is the only large home improvement store in Fayette County. Barely a day goes by that we are in Fayetteville that we don’t make at least one visit. We thought we would like to use a little bit of our blog space to brag a little bit on “our” Lowe’s.

First, let me say that we are very experienced in home improvement stores. Amy used to work at Home Depot and Shawn has been in the construction industry his entire adult life. We regularly visit the three Charleston area Lowe’s stores and have spent a small fortune there over the years. All of this experience, however, did not prepare us for what we have found at the Fayetteville store.

The very first contact we had with anyone at the store was with Eric in contractor sales. He seemed on the phone to be very knowledgable – as you might expect from a “Pro Sales” guy – but we found him to be more than just knowledgable, he seemed to be truly interested in helping us with what proved to be a very specialized order. Later, when we had to order other things from Eric, we found this trait to be authentic. He is always busy, it seems, but never too busy to help. This, we thought, was a rare employee; the kind that we haven’t encountered much in our dealings with “big box” stores. We felt fortunate to have found Eric.

And then, Eric introduced us to Jeff, the flooring guy. In Jeff we found yet another rare (for us anyway) Lowes employee who seemed to have our best interest at heart and who possessed the product knowledge that made us feel confident in his recommendations. Jeff even came over to visit us on his day off and follows us on Facebook. We thought that this store was very lucky to have two such stellar employees.

But then, as we began to get deeper into our project and began to spend more and more time at Lowe’s, we found employee after employee with similar customer service skills and helpful attitudes. It was so evident and so unusual that we would remark to each other about each new person we would meet and simply marvel at their helpfulness, friendliness and product knowledge. From the paint department to the plumbing experts to the hardware guys, this store is filled with great people who seem to love working there.

We have spent lots of time talking about it and have developed many theories as to why this Lowes store seems to be so far superior to others. Amy, with her strong retail management background, credits the store manager. We haven’t met him but we are very impressed with his work. Shawn doesn’t have an explanation but is very pleased to be the beneficiary of whatever it is that makes this store so darn good.

So here is a shout out to our Fayetteville Lowes crew: We truly count you folks as part of our team! Thanks, and keep up the great work!