In 2015 we purchased a key lime tree, a dwarf Emperor mandarin tree and a 2 in 1 grafted dwarf Meyer lemon and navel orange tree, along with 3 wooden half-barrels to plant them in and site them around our swimming pool from Bunnings in Cairns.
After a year or so the metal bands holding the wooden half-barrels together had rusted away so we took our receipt and photos to Bunnings. The nursery manager agreed that they were not suitable for purpose and replaced them with imitation plastic lookalike half-barrels and allowed us to take them home and return the faulty barrels after we had re-potted the trees, which we did.
The lemon finally grew a ripe lemon which looked nothing like any lemon we had ever seen, let alone a Meyer lemon, so we took the cut piece of fruit and the original description label into Bunnings and showed them to the horticulturalist. She tried to contact her supervisor but she was not available, so she took my name and mobile number, and we left.
A short time later my mobile rang. It was the horticulturalist calling to advise that they would replace the weird combo tree with a Meyer lemon tree. We called to Bunnings today and she organised the tree and the processing at the checkout.
What fantastic service. We had not seriously expected to get anything after 3 years so Bunnings exceeded our expectations.
Contrast this to my last visit to the grubs at Masters when they were having their closing down sale to claim a refund for a dead plant we purchased around 9 months prior. To my absolute amazement, the woman at the customer disservice desk said that they were not honouring their 12 month plant guarantee anymore.
I asked to speak to a manager or a supervisor and a woman arrived and said the same thing so I asked to speak with the manager. An American with a bad attitude arrived and refused to do anything. He asked me if I had not bothered to water it for 6 months.
It really illustrates why Masters went bust and why Bunnings are still going strong.
Great work Bunnings.
Good luck to you. While I was renovating my house, I had the opposite experience with Bunnings at their Spearwood megastore here in Perth WA. Over a $3 light bulb. I returned all unused goods, instructed the builder not to allow any of the sub-contractors to purchase any further supplies in relation to my renovations from Bunnings, and it cost them over $3,000. Great work Bunnings.
PS - I now know where to find a “proper” hardware store.
For those in the Perth area, please do not keep it a secret!
FWIW the Bunnings in Eltham VIC has been quite good about returns but as a smaller format store has a serious stocking problem with lots of empty shelves to ‘complement’ its smaller ranges 
An article advising that Bunnings is still Australia’s most trusted brand.
And surprise, surprise. The banks are the least trusted brands.
Who would have thought that.
The last quarter has seen some surprising outcomes. Qantas is a hero while Coles has slipped dramatically.
One surprise is Australia Post (much maligned in other topics in the community) and CBA - Commonwealth Bank are now in the top 10 most trusted. Does that reflect our experiences? Aust Post has been one of our more reliable services.
‘maligned’ ? I’d suggest ‘given the credit they so richly deserve’ is a better way of putting it - how oh how did Australia Post get onto this list? in the top 10 no less? Surely it calls the whole list into question, and I mean that quite seriously and genuinely.
In doing the limbo the lower the bar the greater the achievement.
Roy Morgan set the bar. No conflict of interest?? 
Given the sample size could Choice provide a more reliable membership based assessment. @BrendanMays?
Although with Choice having access to better informed paying members it may also infer why Roy Morgan research has provided unexpected results. IE Choice members are better informed than the average consumer.
I’ll pass on your request to our Insights team 
I wonder if trust and service/value are considered differently from those taking the survey? Sure, maybe we trust certain institutions but doesn’t necessarily mean we feel we’re getting a good deal or appropriate service.
My experience is generally they do a good job. There is possibly the odd contractor (parcel) and postie which cut corners or tracking which doesn’t quite work as expected. These tend to be the subject of complaint and one often doesn’t hear the flip side.
Our local postie and parcel delivery contractor in Tassie have been exceptional…even with the misgivings associated with COVID-19. I expect thre are many other consumers with similar experiences.
They’ve lost two parcels for me in the last couple of months - no ownership on their part. History of complaints goes back a number of years, again no ownership on their part (I suspect their case handlers overseas all read from the same script - of course they do). Have two shipments currently unaccounted for, they can’t tell me where they are from, who they are from, or where they are - tell me to contact the sender, when tracking doesn’t even say where they were sent from - all investigation has to be done by the recipient it seems … seriously … some people are lucky, the rest ?
Judgement is made by how the exception is handled, not how the rule is handled - if everything just works according to the programme, no brains required, all good - when it comes off the rails, that’s where we see how good they really are. Maybe the local PO is institutionally hopeless, and this doesn’t represent the norm, but I’d be more likely to find someone believing in a flat earth than AP’s ability to provide a reliable service in this town 
