How you handle a simple repair says a lot about your store
On Sales Strategies: Service: A Company’s Heartbeat
BY SHANE DECKER
Published in the March 2013 issue.
When a client comes in for a repair, she is giving you something that is valuable and has great meaning to her. So how do you think she feels when one of these things happen:
The repair is late
The repair is not done correctly
You call for her to pick it up, but when she arrives, you can’t find it
The client arrives to pick it up on the day you told her it would be done, but it’s not ready
How often do any of these things happen in your store? Two or three times out of a hundred is too many. And never say what I heard a young salesperson say a couple of weeks ago when she couldn’t find a customer’s repair: “Are you sure you left it at this store?” Obviously, someone filed it in the wrong place, or it’s still on the jeweler’s bench, or the repair isn’t even done!
A retailer I work with was often disappointing his repair customers. Each day, more than one client would come in to find out a repair wasn’t done. The salespeople were getting tired of taking excuses back to the clients from the jeweler. The jeweler had seven days from the time it came in to get each repair done, but simple repairs still were not finished on time. This is what we did to fix the problem:
1 The jeweler had to come out and tell the client why he didn’t have the job done, not the salesperson. Obviously, the jeweler had to wear professional attire.
2 The jeweler had to do the job that day and finish it, even if he had to stay late.
3 That night, the jeweler had to take the repair to the client’s home.
4 The jeweler didn’t get paid for that job.
Guess what? We don’t have late repairs at that store anymore!
If your client’s repair is not done on time, do you think she wants to buy something from you? If you look like an idiot because you can’t find a repair, do you think she trusts your ability to take care of a large purchase? Breaking your word — and a lack of organization — are both sale killers.
Your shop can be awesome, and you can build sales from your shop. Or, your shop can be a sale killer. Which do you want?