Every warranty claim is a deposit or a withdrawal from the trust account. Most service operations don't know which one they're making until the client stops coming back. The two scripts When a client walks in with a warranty question, there are essentially two opening lines:
My dad ran his watch shop for years on memory and paper. Job statuses, promised dates, parts on order, callbacks pending. All of it in his head or in a pile on the bench. Then a client called on a Thursday. His anniversary. The watch was done Wednesday. My dad
A colleague once told me how he handles customers who can't afford the store they walked into. Client comes in, looks around. Budget is tight. SA notices his Citizen quartz is running behind. Offers to set the time, and finds out the battery is dead. Client gets embarrassed.
Not because of what they cost. Because of what they mean. A dealer can price a reference. He can't price a memory. He can't price the feeling of putting on a watch that spent decades on someone else's wrist before it landed on yours.
Stop and smell the roses (or drink a few pints). Today I paused. Had a long conversation with my business partner over a few beers. No agenda. No deliverables. Just two people talking through life and work. → The hustle will still be there tomorrow → The challenges aren't going
Your quote took 20 minutes. Your competitor's took 2. Here's what you're losing. Customer texts Tuesday morning. Full service on a vintage Seiko. You've got three jobs on the bench and a movement halfway apart, so you tell yourself you'll
Summer's almost here. You work hard. You need the break. Take it. But if you're a watchmaker running a bench, the thought of leaving for a week probably sounds less like rest and more like coming back to a mountain of unfinished work. Here's
Some watchmakers run one watch at a time. Dismantle, wash, service, polish, case and bracelet, assembly, water test, QC. Start to finish before the next one starts. I batch. The argument against batching is that a missing part stalls the whole group. True. But the same thing happens on a
Why the most profitable word in watchmaking is "no" Last month I turned down a $400 job. Best decision I made that week. Here's what happened. A client brought in a vintage chronograph. Familiar brand, fair price for the work, and the client himself was easy
The man who handed me a $40 Timex was more nervous than any Rolex client I've ever had. It was a gift from someone who's no longer here. When I'm at the bench, I'm not looking at the dial. I'm
You can now upload images and PDFs in the Watchmaker App. Start saving your before and after photos. Document each watch repair intake right in the record, so you don't have to juggle other photo apps.
New feature soon! Upload photos in Watchmaker App.