The Shoe Company

At the end of March I noticed one of my Ugg boots had ripped along the back seam. I bought them about 3 years ago and no longer had the receipt. Sad day!
I called The Shoe Company/​Town Shoes to ask if they did repairs. The girl I spoke with asked me to bring in the boot and the manager could have a look.
When I brought it in, the manager «T» told me he could tell the boots were well taken care of and while he couldn’t have it repaired, he could call head office to see if it could be replaced. I was totally wowed! He promised to call me back in a couple days with the verdict.
A few weeks passed with no return phone call :-(
I finally called back and «T» told me the boot could not be replaced but asked me to drop back in and he’d give me a $ 150 credit which I thought was more than fair and drove there immediately.
When I asked for him in the store, he asked me for the other boot. When I questioned him (as I had no reason to bring it with me when I was simply picking up my credit), he told me he had to send the boots back in order to give me the credit. «What? I give my boots away and get $ 150 back? The boots cost double that and look brand new!»
He told me he’d give head office another call to see if anything else could be done.
Again, weeks went by. I called the store back and was connected with a second store manager, also named «T». This «T» was shocked at how long the boot saga was taking and promised to look into it and committed to calling me back in a day or two.
Do you think she called me back? Nope!
More weeks went by and again I was forced to call them back. «T» told me she was going to call the company they deal with which does shoe repairs to see if it could simply be fixed and, you got it, would call me back in a couple days.
After all these months, finally! I was getting what I wanted done in the first place!
Well, guess what? Weeks passed and sadly, «T» did not call back as promised :-(
Finally, I call them back and I’ll admit it, I was a little pissy when I was patched through to manager #3: Danny (yes, I spelled out his name — you’ll see why in a minute). He put up with my rude tone and promised to find out what was going on with The Boot and promised to call me back in a day or two.
He called back! Yay! He told me my boot had been repaired and when I came to pick it up, I was to ask for him as he would not let me leave the store unhappy.
Well, I picked up my boot this afternoon and it looks good as new. I asked for Danny and not only did he profusedly apologize for the length of time it took to fix it, he gave me a %50 off coupon for any item in the store.
Danny: you are fantastic! In my mind, you alone saved my impression of The Shoe Company and its lacking of good customer service.

Having sold shoes during the vast majority of my university days, it’s safe to assume that I have pretty high standards for shoe-​shopping experiences and a pretty healthy disdain for the department store treatment. Still, The Shoe Company has done some things right when I’ve been in with friends or to pick up a pair of slippers to toss under the Christmas tree.
My major gripes are limited mostly to just organization and on-​the-​floor service. Brands, styles, colours, and sizes are pretty scattered in some free-​for-​all that makes it really hard to find what you’re looking for or to get a feel your options. Pair that with sparse staffing, a questionable service approach (they’ll pass you the box with your size and walk away, assuming that you don’t have any more questions), and not a tremendous amount of shoe knowledge (will it stretch, tell me about the fit, and similar questions all went largely unanswered), and you really have to be self-​sufficient in here. On the plus side, cashiers have been incredibly friendly and accommodating with special requests (returns, exchanges, gift receipts) so it may depend on who you get.
The brands and styles aren’t really to my individual taste but I’ll give them credit for carrying a wide range, including higher end and more fashionable options in the Town Shoes section, with many different price points to choose from. So, if you know your own feet and proper shoe fitting, you’ll have no trouble here.