Lately, there has been some doom and gloom about the service aspect of the watch industry. Too many brands are doing a poor job of servicing watches - taking too long, not doing the job right the first time, and in general disappointing the end consumer. Too often, this reflects badly on the retailer, with whom the customer has a relationship, not necessarily impacting the brand.
“After sales is as important as sales,” says Denis Asch, owner, L’Heure Asch, Geneva, Switzerland, pulling no punches. “We keep clients loyal with quality and an efficient after sales service. A satisfied client will talk about the brand, but also about a store’s great service. And on the contrary, if a watch stops working, the store is always in the front line for complaints.”
The time has come for retailers to take back the power in the service relationship and demand better service from the brands, and to see service as an opportunity to shine in the eyes of their customers. Sure, there are things out of your control as a retailer, but with after sales service, take the reins where you can.

Communication and trust
If you have ever been stranded at an airport with no news about the flight for which you are waiting, you know how frustrating it is to not have communication. When you accept a timepiece for repair, it’s vital for you to communicate with your customer throughout the course of the repair. “No one likes to feel like they have been forgotten,” says Ron Stoll, President of Carl F Bucherer North America, and also the owner of one of the most respected watch repair companies in the USA, Stoll & Co., based in Dayton, Ohio. “I foresee that service will become more of a challenge for consumers and retailers, due to the incredible number of mechanical watches produced and sold in the last 15 years.
“The market is saturated with retail jewellers selling timepieces, but very few are service driven,” he continues. “Watches are living, breathing animals, every timepiece that is sold will need a service at some point in its lifetime. I would advise every retailler to hire and train an individual to professionally manage their repair department. Make it a profit centre for your business - if you can provide excellent service, you will gain respect and trust from your customer. They will come back to you when they are ready to invest in a new timepiece.”

The quality of the service experience
First and foremost, for your after sales service department to be successful, the watch has to be serviced correctly. Too many retailers have horror stories about sending watches back to the brands to be repaired, only to have them returned with the problem still there. That’s one of the reasons more and more forward-thinking retailers are setting up or expanding their service areas. For service to be excellent, the timepiece has to be both mechanically and cosmetically perfect. “Great service, personalized attention, will always stand out over a standard service,” says Asch. “It sometimes happens that when the service or a personalized surprise amazes a client, he then feels indebted - it’s human and legitimate, and can transform into a good opportunity to sell.”

Photo: Stoll & Co. and Kristian Skeie

The length of time
Typically, a repair comes in and the first step is to provide an estimate, so the customer knows what to expect. Then, after the estimate is approved, the watch is serviced. In today’s day and age, where modern computerized cars can be repaired in one day, it’s hard for customers to accept that watches will take much, much longer.
Again, stories abound of watches that have taken six months or more to repair. The better you can be at managing the time it takes to repair a watch will go a long way to assuring that your customer has a positive experience.
If the watch is super complicated and needs to go back to the brand for service, the wait will obviously be longer. That’s where communication comes in, informing the client about what is happening with the watch.
“The majority of clients don’t want to wait and don’t know how to wait,” explains Asch. “I feel that they prefer to pay and wait less. They have to give up their favourite watch, it is almost a painful separation, the less they wait, the better it is. And of course quality service is of utmost importance - we must always preserve this equation of irreproachable service in the quickest time.”
Education is vital here, explaining to the customer why it can take so long to fix a complicated watch. Some retailers provide a replacement watch for the service time, while others don’t bother, because if it’s a special watch that needs to be sent away, chances are the customer has another watch he can wear.
“The length of time that it takes to provide the estimate and how long it takes to perform the service work, once the estimate is approved, is so important,” explains Stoll. “We work hard to turnaround watches in the quickest time possible, while also communicating with the client every step of the way.”

The challenge of in-house movements
As the Swatch Group continues limiting access to movements, more and more brands are developing their own in-house movements. This presents a potentially huge problem for repairs, as each of these new movements is different from the others. In the past, most watches used ETA movements, for which the watchmakers in repair centres were trained. Now, the watchmakers will most probably not be trained on the YZ1000 movement from Company X, so the watch is going to have to be returned to the factory, which means increased delays.
The burden here will be on these brands to manage their after sales service departments very well. While it’s true that more watchmakers are coming into the industry, as schools continue to open around the world, but at the same time, the best watchmakers don’t necessarily think about service first. Many want to create new watches, not service existing watches, so finding the best watchmakers for service work can be a real challenge.
“I am worried because a lot of brands are not doing the necessary work to ensure a good and rapid follow-up, because obviously there is less added value for repairs than for sales,” says Asch. “Too often, many brands make their clients wait way too long, even if they do give a quality service.”

Photo: Kristian Skeie

The future
Given the amount of mechanical watches sold over the past two decades and the lack of qualified watchmakers, and the increasing number of in-house movements on which watchmakers are not trained, there could be real trouble in the coming days.
Investment is needed, to prepare for the future and to keep your customers happy, because the bottom line is that it’s not a question of if, but of when these mechanical watches will be brought in for service.
The time has come for retailers to invest in state-of-the-art after sales service facilities, or to align themselves closely with a third party vendor in their own country.
“We are a service company, therefore we have made the investments in newest testing equipment/tools available from Switzerland, and have built and staffed our workshops to facilitate servicing the most complicated mechanical timepieces,” says Stoll. “We are also very advanced in our I.T. department, giving us the ability to process repairs quickly.”

The time has come for retailers to take action, to solve the problem before it becomes unsolvable.

Click here for more technical watch articles in the WATCH KNOWLEDGE section of europastar.com

Source: Europa Star August - September 2010 Magazine Issue