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"If you follow my blog, you know how much I value good customer service. Being able to rely on a company to stand behind its product and/or service has always been something I think is necessary for any deal to be a really good one. So here&amp;#039;s another story about customer service that involved my Merrell sneakers. The other morning while I was out running, one of my sneakers loosened up and almost flew off my foot. I&amp;#039;m a slow jogger, but even so, it happened so quickly that I almost took a tumble. When I bent down to fix my sneaker I saw the &amp;quot;speed lace&amp;quot; had broken. (By the way, I just learned, that&amp;#039;s the name for laces that pull through a plastic tab at the top of sneakers. There&amp;#039;s no tying; you just pull the laces up and adjust the plastic tab.)  So there I was, about 2-1/2 miles from home with no way to tighten my sneaker, and wondering what to do with only one &amp;quot;working&amp;quot; sneaker. Having to buy a whole new pair (not cheap, even on sale!) because of a broken lace seemed utterly ridiculous.  So later that day, after going to a shoemaker who said ordinary laces wouldn&amp;#039;t work, I went to the sporting goods store where I originally bought my sneakers. They had some universal replacement kit for $14.99 that even the store expert couldn&amp;#039;t figure out how to use. Needless to say, I wasn&amp;#039;t happy. So I called Merrell&amp;#039;s customer service; told them about my problem, that I had no receipt and couldn&amp;#039;t remember when I&amp;#039;d bought my sneakers. &amp;quot;No problem&amp;quot; the rep said. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ll send you a complimentary pair of laces.&amp;quot; (And he promised me that while they&amp;#039;re a bit tricky to use, the directions are pretty easy to follow.) It was that easy. Hooray for Merrell. If that&amp;#039;s not great customer service, I don&amp;#039;t know what is. For me, this is a real Deal Maker. They&amp;#039;ve got me as a customer for life! (Maybe I&amp;#039;d better wait until I&amp;#039;m sure I can figure out how to use replace laces. I&amp;#039;ll let you know.) "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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