I had been going to the Austin Shoe Hospital on Burnet for years and the work was always good. Since my office is downtown I tried using their location on Congress Ave. Big mistake. The guy behind the counter - he's the manager, I think - is really condescending and unpleasant to deal with. In fact, they've recently ruined a pair of my shoes (I brought them in for heel and sole repairs and they came back with the uppers totally bent out of shape). When I asked about the damage, the manager tried to imply that I brought them in that way. "I should be more careful checking shoes before we accept them," he said. As if I was trying to pull one over on them when the shoes came back to me with damage that definitely wasn't there when I dropped them off. To be fair, they did try to repair the damage, but couldn't fix the shoes. And then when I went to pick up the shoes a second time, still not repaired correctly, the manager charged me full price to get my broken shoes back. What a missed opportunity in customer service. I know that sometimes things happen and it's not always perfect. I can handle that. It's the way the manager dealt with me that's the problem. And to top it off, the shoes are now not wearable. Disappointing all the way around. Lousy customer service, an unpleasant store manager, shoes that are destroyed, and they charged me full price for the experience. I've been OK with other Austin Shoe Hospital locations in the past, but as long as this is the guy they have in charge of their Congress Avenue store I want nothing to do with the place.
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