Treat the Customer Better, It'll Help

So often, and especially when you go to a retail store, it's not what is said that matters as much as HOW it is said. So on Friday, I bought a light switch panel for my condo that happened to be the wrong color. I went back to exchange my $2.27 purchase only to find I had lost the receipt.
Big deal, you say? Oh yes--it appears not much is simple at the return desk at the New Tampa Home Depot, where there was one lonely clerk left to help a line of 5 or 6 customers.
So much is right with customer service these days and so much else is wrong, that it always amuses me when I read items like today's Wall Street Journal where lower earnings forecasts at Home Depot are blamed on the weakened housing market.
Not even the strongest housing market could have improved my experience at Home Depot Friday, where the clerk asked me for my driver's license. Without consent or prompting, he input the driver's license number into the computer. When I told him I didn't want that information recorded for privacy reasons, he snottily told me it was their return policy and he wouldn't be able to exchange my items if I refused.
As I incredulously discussed further, he said the manager of the store could speak to me but that he would say the same thing. Wow, at some point, these huge fat companies will realize how to treat their customers and then realize external issues like a weak housing market and or weak economy do hurt, but not as much as rude customer service.