On the spot repairs

A converstion came up in our store the other day, after 2 separate
customers had requested that we do their repairs on the spot. The
first customer had called and made an appointment earlier in the week
to have her platinum engagement ring sized, and her wedding band
stretched while she waited. The second customer had walked in, charm
bracelet in hand, and asked if we would solder a couple of charms
while she was there.

Both jobs were done, but the question came up, after the fact, about
whether the customer with the appointment should be charged an “on
the spot” repair fee, as the second customer was. One opinion was
that the appointment negated the “on the spot” nature of the request,
and should have been charged at the normal repair rate. The other
camp said that the appointment only ment the work was expected, but
did nothing to alter the fact that the job was still done “on the
spot”, and should be charged accordingly. We would like to hear what
others do in similar circumstances. (By the way, the sizing customer
was not charged for work “on the spot”)

Melissa in New Jersey, where the sun is finally warm again!

Melissa, Seems to me that the rationale for “on the spot” pricing is
that you have to take a bench jeweler off of other pressing work to
do it – which may decrease the efficiency of work flow for the day.
Given that, the appointment means that you have ample notice to plan
the work, so there is no efficiency lost.

In that case, I would not charge it for the appointment customer,
but definitely would for the walk-in (which was truly “on the spot”).

I’ll be interested to hear others’ contributions on this issue.

Karen Goeller
@Karen_Goeller
www.nolimitations.com

At our store, we don’t charge any extra for on the spot repairs
(please note, I am not the policy maker), but we do discourage them.
My personal feeling is that on the spot repairs disrupt the schedule,
are unfair to other customers, and most importantly, do not really
allow the repair person the time to do the job well. There is always
a time pressure, and that is when mistakes occur or problems sneak
up. New sale merchandise is the exception, but that tends to be less
problematical on the average, too. In some cases, the customer has a
reason that is good enough that we will go along with a quick repair,
but it depends not only on the customer’s reason, but our current
workload and the nature of the job. Any consensus on the question
out there? Should we charge extra? Should we do ‘on the spot’ at
all? I think if it were my decision, I think I would: Only accept
quick repairs ‘on the spot’ Only accept them if it doesn’t really
create a major blip in my work day Make it clear that there are some
extra risks involved in rushing things

Not sure about the extra charge. I know people are often willing to
pay extra, but I’m not sure about the message it sends out,
especially to other customers. Appointments are another problem. We
don’t work that way simply because so few of those who were making
appointments would actually show up when they were supposed to. The
seemed to think they could make an appointment for a certain day,
then show up whenever they found it convenient and expect the same
service. We would only ask them to commit to morning , mid day or
later afternoon. They would show up 3 days later expecting us to
drop everything. Oh well. Jim

We refuse to do all on the spot repairs, except for some sizings of
our own work. We only do repair work on outside jewelry on one day
a week and since we usually have a pile of 30-40 repairs backed up at
all times, it just isn’t fair that the other customers should get
bumped out of line. Usually the people who are desperate to get it
done right away are asking for it because they waited until the last
minute, so why should someone else suffer because of their own
incompetence?

Daniel R. Spirer, GG