Customer Service Still Matters: Von Maur

Von Maur is a family owned Midwest based retailer that reminds me of Nordstroms (but not quite as “upscale.”)

Founded in Davenport, Iowa in 1872, they have 22 locations mainly in Midwest states (Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Kentucky, Kansas and Nebraska).

Like Nordstrom, they have live piano music in their stores (although Nordstrom has now apparently ended that tradition because they said their customers thought it was “old-fashioned.”) They have a great shoe department with shoes you normally don’t see in other department stores. And they are well-known for their customer service.

I encountered this first hand over the weekend.

I went to the Von Maur in the Yorktown Mall in Lombard, a western suburb of Chicago. I was hunting for after Christmas bargains at the Carson’s in the same mall (Carson’s is a department store in the same vein as Macys). I went to Von Maur to check out their boots - to see if anything had gone on sale yet. Von Maur doesn’t have the crazy “door busters” and other sales like the big retail chains.

Lo and behold, some of their boots were marked down. Even the ritzier brands.

A pair of black dress boots I had been eying for months was now on sale so I told the salesman my size and waited. When he emerged with my boots, alas, he didn’t have my size. But they ran “small” and so I tried on the boot that was a half size bigger.

But I knew they weren’t right immediately. They were too big.

Then the salesman offered: “I can check our other stores and see if someone else has them in your size.”

“Great,” I replied.

These boots rarely went on sale so I thought what the heck. I wasn’t too hopeful though.

But lo and behold- ONE store had ONE pair of them left (out of 22 stores.) The salesman called the store to have a salesman there go into the shoe “back room” and make sure they were really there (as sometimes the computer inventory isn’t correct.) But they were!

One pair of the boots in my size remained.

“We can ship them to you from this store,” the salesman offered. “Free of charge.”

Free of charge???

“UPS Ground. You should have them within a week.”

It was a no-brainer! I took the phone from the salesman and told the salesman at the other store who had the boots my address and gave him my credit card number. That was that.

And then I waited.

They had told me it would take a week.

But no.

Within 3 days the boots were sitting in my building mailroom. Only THREE days!

All FREE OF CHARGE.

What great service. Who does that these days? I will be shopping at Von Maur again. You can count on it.

Von Maur is apparently looking at expansion possibilities on Chicago’s Mag Mile or State Street (as they have 6 stores in Illinois, but none within Chicago.) I welcome them to the City with open arms.