Footwear Insight

I'VE SPENT A LOT OF TIME THINKING ABOUT CUSTOMER service as we put together this issue — and it's a topic I'm willing to bet you think about too. (Just a little, right?) It's no secret that "service" is the peg that most independent retailers have hung their reputations on, and is the ingre- dient they're relying on to continue to grow and thrive in a changing retail marketplace. But while it's easy to say, "Make sure you provide great customer service!" it can be awfully hard to define what great customer service actually looks like day in and day out. So we put this issue together with some ideas of our own. Does it mean giving your customers the styles they crave? On page 38, we're highlighting the best of the hottest footwear trend around. It's our showcase of the "Dad shoe" trend that's blazing through the casual market and the runways, and giving some smaller heritage brands new relevance in the style space. Is it showing customers a side to themselves they didn't even know was waiting to be discovered? Our Trend Insight Consumer survey, which you can find on page 44, asked consumers how they felt about foot scanning technology. People are hungry for more information about themselves, and they're open to the technology — and, crucially, the people and the places — that gives it to them. Is it staying informed on where the market trends are headed to keep your offering fresh? Well, we've got the details on the performance knits (page 16) and the next-gen leather and leather alternatives (page 24) that are making waves in the outdoor, athletic and casual spheres — oh, and a roundup of some of the freshest recovery footwear styles adding new dimensions to the category on page 20. But it's the Gold Medal Service Awards, our fourth annual recognition of the best sit and fit retailers in the country, that's our best effort to wrap our arms around "good ser- vice." With more than 120 shops across American nominated and mystery shopped, we identified 78 independents who nailed the service game. You can see the list of the top- scoring retailers on page 36, and you can see the criteria we used to score the service on the mystery shop visits on page 28. You can get a glimpse at what we think good service means there, and we'd love to hear from you what you think it looks like, in your own shop and out in the world. In that same vein, we asked our perfect-score-winner retailers, as well as the select group who have made the list all four years, to tell us what good service looks like to them — and how they take it to the next level. (And yes, there's some overlap there, including our cover star, Skip Chandler of Chandler's Walk Shoppe in Salt Lake City, UT.) Each store has a slightly different approach, but there's a common thread. They're committed to making the lives of their customers a little easier, a little more fun, a little friendlier, a little richer, a little more interesting — a little better, all the time. So how to define good customer service? That's a call each store has to make on its own, but I think you'll find there are some great paths to follow in this issue. l — Jen GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME TIMEOUT | JENNIFER ERNST BEAUDRY the healthiest shoes you'll ever wear ® Featuring Lynco ® or thotic suppor t and memory foam cushioning for superior comfor t

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