PLENTY OF JEWELERS will tell you how tricky it is to price a repair accurately (not to mention profitably). Besides developing a structured, consistent pricing system, it can be tough to get your team to follow it. Whether it’s lack of understanding or hesitation to charge customers enough, you’re likely encountering pushback if you’re trying to raise repair prices in the face of a rising gold market.
Whether you’re managing a small shop or a larger operation, success in selling repairs hinges on solid training and clear communication.
Properly trained teams can confidently handle repairs, ensuring profitability while building trust with their clients.
Start With Why
We can’t tackle customer objections if we’re still dealing with staff objections, like “Why do we need to charge more?” and “What if people think it’s too expensive?”
Start with the shop — not everyone knows what happens on the bench. What does it take to rebuild a channel? Retip a prong on an emerald ring? It’s not about nickel-and-diming, it’s about valuing our craft.
How about something as simple as the price of rhodium? The rarest and most expensive precious metal in the world, and we don’t charge to plate a ring? Suddenly, it’s not so crazy to add $65 to every repair that requires polishing white gold — and now they have an explanation for the rare customer that pushes back.
Want employees more invested in the success of the business? Give a peek behind the curtain and show how they can contribute to it.
A Little at a Time
Train your team to sell repairs by starting with your most common repairs, like sizings, prongs and solders. As time goes on, cover one to three repair tasks in each of your store meetings. Take 15-20 minutes out of every weekly meeting for the book, and you could cover the entire Geller Book in a quarter.
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Practice Makes Perfect
It’s one thing to understand repairs — it’s another to communicate them to customers. Complex jobs won’t come down to just one repair task or ordering one finding. Think up creative repair tasks and have your team roleplay quoting a customer on each individual element.
Just like sales training, practice handling objections.
“Why does something this small cost so much to fix?”
“Isn’t this a quick repair — why can’t you just do it for free?”
When they build the confidence to handle intake like an expert, your team will find repairs aren’t price-sensitive, they’re trust-sensitive.
Celebrate Wins
Keep the conversation going! When you see a big project priced right or hear a clear explanation win over a client, share that success with the team. In my stores, we made a push to try the Geller Book’s “HP” system (pricing certain chapters 50% higher than the usual book rate). There was skepticism, but the team quickly saw they were closing repairs at the same rate and couldn’t wait to share their successes.
Build a confident, educated staff, and you’ll develop clients that value and trust your work, and ultimately, drive the profit your business deserves. Make it a priority, and it’ll pay you back in droves.
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