Please get a second opinion!

Joe_Horner

I hope it's ok to post a "professional" vent here - it's been irritating me all day and just gotta vent! There's also a lesson in it for all you consumers out there...

For those who don't know, I repair watches for a living. I have my own (small) hop and I also do the trade repairs for the two jewellers in town.

It's a little irritating that, having been in our current place for 2 years, I still get as many trade jobs from one of them as I get across my own counter - some people will always go for the shiny window and plush carpets because "you get what you pay for".

It's also a little irritating that I happen to know that the jeweller with the posh carpets slaps a 300% + VAT mark-up on my trade prices - something like a simple flat glass which i'll charge her £10 for will be charged to her customer at £36. If I quote her £85 (as I did on a clock recently) she'll quote the customer £300 (as I discovered when the owner brought it to us for a second opinion).

So, you get exactly the same job, done by exactly the same person, in her shop as you would walking through my door but you'll pay around 2-3 times as much. So much for "what you pay for". But those are normal irritations of business and I can live with them. Normally.

Today was a little different....

I sometimes get watches sent over for estimate that "didn't work with a new battery" (they do battery changes themselves) and find that there's accidental damage which was undoubtedly caused by them. In those cases, within reason, I fix them for free and put a note with them that it was damage by them so they hopefully avoid the same in future.

Last week I had one such watch - a ladies Rotary - where, taking the back off, they'd sliced across the movement with a case knife and the only cure was going to be a full movement. That damage MUST have been caused by them because there's no way it would have run on the previous battery in the condition it was in.

So I phoned through a quote for a £40 movement replacement and explained what the damage was. I expected them to say go ahead - their mistake after all - but the boss wasn't in so had to wait for the ok. This morning I got a call that the watch was to be returned undone because the customer doesn't want to spend that much on it.

Think about that for a minute - they damaged the watch through incompetence / negligence and then tried to charge the owner for the repair. On a quote of £40 they would have quoted about £135 to the owner. If the owner had gone ahead they would have made £80 profit (after VAT) out of their own mistake.

Anyway, thanks for letting me unload y'all - be careful out there cos there's sharks in the water!





ps: the day did end a little better with someone bringing in a (genuine) 18k gold Patek Philippe for a battery change based on recommendations. And didn't quite believe when i charged £4.50 the same as any other watch :rotfl:

photome

Joe_Horner wrote: »

I hope it's ok to post a "professional" vent here - it's been irritating me all day and just gotta vent! There's also a lesson in it for all you consumers out there...

For those who don't know, I repair watches for a living. I have my own (small) hop and I also do the trade repairs for the two jewellers in town.

It's a little irritating that, having been in our current place for 2 years, I still get as many trade jobs from one of them as I get across my own counter - some people will always go for the shiny window and plush carpets because "you get what you pay for".

It's also a little irritating that I happen to know that the jeweller with the posh carpets slaps a 300% + VAT mark-up on my trade prices - something like a simple flat glass which i'll charge her £10 for will be charged to her customer at £36. If I quote her £85 (as I did on a clock recently) she'll quote the customer £300 (as I discovered when the owner brought it to us for a second opinion).

So, you get exactly the same job, done by exactly the same person, in her shop as you would walking through my door but you'll pay around 2-3 times as much. So much for "what you pay for". But those are normal irritations of business and I can live with them. Normally.

Today was a little different....

I sometimes get watches sent over for estimate that "didn't work with a new battery" (they do battery changes themselves) and find that there's accidental damage which was undoubtedly caused by them. In those cases, within reason, I fix them for free and put a note with them that it was damage by them so they hopefully avoid the same in future.

Last week I had one such watch - a ladies Rotary - where, taking the back off, they'd sliced across the movement with a case knife and the only cure was going to be a full movement. That damage MUST have been caused by them because there's no way it would have run on the previous battery in the condition it was in.

So I phoned through a quote for a £40 movement replacement and explained what the damage was. I expected them to say go ahead - their mistake after all - but the boss wasn't in so had to wait for the ok. This morning I got a call that the watch was to be returned undone because the customer doesn't want to spend that much on it.

Think about that for a minute - they damaged the watch through incompetence / negligence and then tried to charge the owner for the repair. On a quote of £40 they would have quoted about £135 to the owner. If the owner had gone ahead they would have made £80 profit (after VAT) out of their own mistake.

Anyway, thanks for letting me unload y'all - be careful out there cos there's sharks in the water!





ps: the day did end a little better with someone bringing in a (genuine) 18k gold Patek Philippe for a battery change based on recommendations. And didn't quite believe when i charged £4.50 the same as any other watch :rotfl:

That is shocking!

normally I would say name and shame but guess that would do your business more harm than good

ssparks2003

Or another company had tried to replace the battery, she got the hump when the repair failed and took it to a different shop.

Assumption is just assumption.

AndyPix

Maybe the owner tried to change the battery themself , slipped with the knife and then took it to
xxxxxx to get it repaired ..


Why do you assume the other shop did it ??

Joe_Horner

photome wrote: »

That is shocking!

normally I would say name and shame but guess that would do your business more harm than good

I'm not too bothered about the effect on my business tbh, if I lost their trade work i wouldn't lose sleep. But I am concerned about site rules here. Because it's a small town, and I'm the only place that does watch repairs on the premises, if I name and shame I also identify my own business which is verboten.

I like having the chance to offer impartial advice when the opportunity arises for fellow MSE'ers and I'm already on an infraction for losing my rag with someone a few weeks back. So don't want to push it

ssparks2003 wrote: »

Or another company had tried to replace the battery, she got the hump when the repair failed and took it to a different shop.

Assumption is just assumption.

Nope, the chain of events is as the "assumption" suggests but the post was already getting rather long and it was intended to vent the annoyance I was feeling rather than as a deposition to a court so didn't feel the need to fill in all the small details

lincroft1710

Joe, if your location actually is on the island, then I wouldn't have thought it would be too difficult to identify you. Good post BTW

powerful_Rogue

In your position I would launch an aggressive marketing campaign.

From just reading your post, I would want to come to you!

agrinnall

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

In your position I would launch an aggressive marketing campaign.

From just reading your post, I would want to come to you!

I entirely agree about the marketing, it was my first thought when I read the post. I'd also much prefer to take my watch to someone like Joe than pay the grossly inflated charges made by the fancy shops, the difficulty is finding someone trustworthy in Joe's position (and sadly if that is where you live it wouldn't really be cost effective to bring my watch there).

Joe_Horner

lincroft1710 wrote: »

Joe, if your location actually is on the island, then I wouldn't have thought it would be too difficult to identify you. Good post BTW

Thanks

The location is right but keeping names out of it means people would have to actively search to find us. That applies as soon as I offer watch related advice and qualify it with the fact that I repair them, and I don't believe the intent of the site rules is to prevent people offering knowledge like that. On the other hand if I name & shame then it puts a big Google maps pin within a hundred yards or so of my door, which seems like pushing the rules a little!

The problem with marketing is that there are inevitably some (quite a lot?) of people who will never accept that the quote for £15 for a glass from a small specialist gets exactly the same service as the quote for £35 from the long-standing jewellers who have just moved to a larger and shinier location. After all, you get what you pay for!

The only things that change that are buying an even larger and shinier location (and increasing prices to match) or word of mouth / recommendations like te one that brought that PP in for a battery.

I'm certainly not short of work, and if they can get away with the huge mark-up then good luck to them. It's when t goes beyond mark-up into (at best) less-than-honourable trading that it starts to grate.

And I'm not sure a marketing campaign based on "If you don't want to pay to have your watch broken..." would go down too well :rotfl:


eta: The last time I "caught them out" was when her son broke a glass changing a battery. He's a decent kid, works hard, and mistakes do happen, so I replaced it at no charge to get him off the hook. A few weeks later I was chatting to him and he mentioned that she'd been ok about it and had just taken the tenner (which I hadn't charged her) out of his wages.

MothballsWallet

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

In your position I would launch an aggressive marketing campaign.

From just reading your post, I would want to come to you!

Me too - I've got a Russian "Chaika" quartz pocket watch in the wardrobe that needs looked at but there aren't that many watch repair shops around here I can take it.

I've had it looked at a number of years ago, but was told it couldn't be repaired as the damage was to the quartz crystal.

Gingernutty

"Joe Horner. The professional's professional."