MANY JEWELERS SAY they guarantee their work, but when the customer comes back because a stone fell out, the first crazy thing they say is, “Did you catch the ring in a car door?” Just trying to get out of taking the hit. More than likely, they are afraid to take the blame for something that they didn’t do.
Commonly, I see a store guaranteeing their work for only six months. Guess what? Most everything bought and many mechanical things repaired in the USA are guaranteed for 12 months; therefore, most customers believe your repair work should be guaranteed for one year. We guaranteed our work for a year.
But somebody has to pay for this extra expense and guess what? Customers pay for it. How, you ask? CHARGE!
Most of your problems that come back are stones that are either loose or they fall out and are gone. What does it cost to give the customer a 5-point round diamond that fell out after you sized the ring or retipped it just six months ago? At $600 per carat, you might think a diamond cost $30.
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Wrong!
Assuming your net profit as a percentage is 10%, then your store will have to do an EXTRA $300 in sales, above and beyond your goals to have $30 left over for a free diamond!
You should charge your customers to check and tighten stones and therefore guarantee stone loss on every piece you work on. (This is primarily for working on jewelry with melee, not center stones.)
If you size a ring and it has 5 to 20 stones, charge an extra $41 for the jeweler to check the stones while working on the item. Then the sales staff doesn’t have to check them at check in, the jeweler will later. If stones are loose or get loose while working on it, the staff doesn’t have to call the customer, the $41 takes care of it. What if the stones come in tight and leave tight? We keep the money as it might get loose or fall out later. Just like car insurance, we build a fund to take care of the others.
Here’s a chart from our book of check & tighten prices.
Here’s how it will work out. Assume you take in 5,000 job envelopes a year and 75% of them have 5 or more stones in the items. You TELL the customer (don’t ask), “It’s $60 to make your ring smaller and there’s an additional $41 for our jeweler to check and tighten the side stones. If they are loose now or get loose, there will be no additional charge to tighten them for 12 months. If they fall out, we will replace them at no charge.”
75% of customers will say “OK, great.” The 25% who say, “I don’t want to pay to check and tighten,” then on their envelope you write, “No guarantee on stone loss.”
Now the math. 75% of 5,000 envelopes have 5 or more stones in them equals 3,750 jobs, and if 75% of customers gladly pay the extra charge, that’s 2812 customers who will pay the $41 extra dollars.
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You’ll take in an extra $115,312! Isn’t that enough money to guarantee stone loss for lots of customers and keep them happy and your reputation untarnished?
Now, can’t you happily guarantee your work, with a smile?
Practice the delivery, and you’ll have newfound money and happier customers and staff as well!