They say the sin but not the sinner. The service experience in a shop, whether single or multi-brand, is not always what one expects. Over time, hanging out with enthusiasts, I have amassed a collection of tales of small and big disappointments.
There are those who come in to enquire about an unavailable model and are dismissed in less than a minute, like an insolent child. Those who pick up a newly serviced watch in a boutique and have it delivered in a paper bag instead of a soft fabric clutch.
There is the collector with a perpetual calendar on his wrist who takes another model in for service because the date doesn't click, and receives a supponent explanation of how the date display works (which still doesn't click). Of the latter type I have several, filed under the category 'Understanding who you are dealing with'. Then there is the enthusiast who asks the clerk of a large watch shop to look at a specific model and is told that that watch does not exist in the brand's collection.
From the most common to the most surreal, I have heard of many negative experiences in retail outlets. The reason is that they are the ones that stick in people's minds the most.
If we receive the treatment we expect, we file the experience away. If we are treated particularly well, we remember it with pleasure when it happens.
A bad experience, on the other hand, remains branded in the memory and still burns after years. That is why my collection of negative cases is always the richest, because people are more likely to recount these experiences than the positive ones. Moreover, the higher the expectations (a famous shop, a chain or a major flagship shop), the more heated the tale becomes.
So now I ask you: what is the kind of service you expect in a watchmaker's shop, but do not always receive?
Dody Giussani
