Footwear Insight

GOLD MEDAL SERVICE AWARDS FOR OUTSTANDING CUSTOMER SERVICE // 2019 32 • Footwear Insight ~ September/October 2019 footwearinsight.com Notching a perfect score on the Gold Medal mystery shop is one thing — doing it the first year your store has been in Gold Medal Service award contention is taking it to the next level. Owner Brenda Felger, who runs the store with her daughter Rebecca (a certified fitter of therapeutic shoes), started with a kids business and has grown Felger's into a destination for the whole family. "We specialize in fitting and customer service — those are the only things that are going to keep us relevant and different than everything else," she said. "The first thing I tell my employees is to shut up and listen: You'll get everything you need to hear." Providing that empathetic ear and using what you hear to get people into the footwear they need is the whole point, she said. "Selling shoes is the byproduct of what we do — we help people feel better. For me it's a ministry, and it always has been." S C O R E : 1 0 0 FELGER'S FOOTWEAR HOUMA, LA / FOUNDED: 1991 Tops for Shoes, a sprawling 30,000-square-foot shop in downtown Asheville that fits men, women and children with fashion and comfort footwear, makes good service a family affair. Run by third-generation owner Alex Carr, the store counts on veteran staff to maintain the highest stan- dards of service. And that includes Carr, who makes time to work the floor. As Carr told us, "I work the floor myself and try to set a good example. You don't want to be too far from the fitting stool in this business." Add to that service commitment an extensive brand portfolio, commitment to fashionable and comfortable shoes for the whole family, and you've got a store that customers are happy to explore again and again. S C O R E : 1 0 0 TOPS FOR SHOES ASHEVILLE, NC / FOUNDED: 1959 The Luck family may have been in the shoe business for more than a century, but there's always something new to learn. John Luck, president of Lucky Shoes, said that opening the country's first Vionic store in 2017 gave the store a whole new perspec- tive on service. "Many people that are coming into our store, the place that they heard about Vionic was QVC, and there are no better salespeople than the people at QVC." The channel's hosts' legendary enthusiasm for all aspects of construction and function gave the Vionic store a template for how much shop- pers wanted to know about the product, he said, "We don't want them to feel like they wanted to be waited on by [host] Liam [Bourke] and be disappointed." Add that to the Lucky Shoes service tradition and you've got a winning formula. S C O R E : 1 0 1 VIONIC BY LUCKY SHOES FAIRLAWN, OH / FOUNDED: 2017

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