Three Cheers for Rockport!

In all this talk of corporate greed and misbehavior, it's nice to run into a company that still knows how to take care of its customers. I have been wearing Rockport shoes (not the same pair, mind you) for close to ten years. They're the most comfortable shoes I can find, and they're moderately enough priced that I'll replace them once every three years or so. Generally I have two pairs - one for work and one for shabbos/special occasions.

Well, surprise surprise, about two months ago in the middle of a shabbos I noticed something felt weird on my shoes. They have a separate piece of leather in the front half that sort of looks like a cap - I look down, and the right shoe cap has completely separated from the rest of the shoe. All the stitching came out. So I get on the phone with Rockport (after shabbos, naturally), tell them the shoes are less than two years old, is there anything they can do for me?

Boy, was there.

The lovely person on the phone tells me to send them in by UPS or some other trackable method. If they determine it's just normal wear & tear, they'll send me back my shoes & I'd be off to Zappos for a new pair. If they determined their was some kind of manufacturing error or problem, they'd send me a new pair in the same price range.

So what shows up at the house yesterday? A brand spankin' new pair of Rockport Dress shoes. Not quite identical to my old ones, but near enough. So for the $12 it cost me to ship the shoes back, I got a new pair.

It's rare enough to find polite people on the phone when you call up a company. It's even rarer these days to find one with this level of customer service. They still take care of people at Rockport, and I'm glad the shoes are so comfortable that I can continue to support a company that cares about keeping their customers satisfied.