[Jewelry making - Article 01685] - Re: [Orchid] Posted Repair Policies

[Jim Reitze]

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    When I was in the repair business, I often (too often) faced this
    same problem. I learned a few things through the years to help. 

    1 - when presented a piece for repair, I made my estimate for
    everything the piece needed to make it 'like new'. Often the don't
    want to pay this much, and only want the more immediate problems
    dealt with. I would then bring the estimate down to what they wanted,
    explaining what would and would not be done. 

    2 - I made it clear, including a posted policy, that I would warrant
    only the work I had done, not against future problems of unrelated
    nature. Keep in mind that posted policies don't seem to have any
    impact in the beginning. Unless you rudely force them to read it and
    sign off (and you still don't know if they really read it), posting
    something is really only useful to point out after the problem has
    come up. 

    3 - On occasion, I refused a piece entirely if I got the 'bad vibe',
    or if the customer wanted only minimal work done and I thought it was
    a can of worms I didn't want to get into. This was especially true if
    I saw the I was likely to do additional damage elsewhere by
    performing the requested repair. 

    4 - I learned to accept that despite all precautions, there will
    occasionally be someone who puts you in the position of making an
    uncomfortable choice, to either do some free repair work to appease,
    or refuse to be bullied and risk the bad word of mouth advertising. 

    The funny thing that I noticed over the years was that most of the
    people who were most likely to try this kind of thing were also those
    with the least financial worries, who could well afford to have it
    done right. I am reminded of one woman many years ago with a triple
    strand of pearls. One was broken, but the other 2 were worn right to
    the breaking point. Flat out refused to have the other strands
    redone, then was back in a matter of a couple of weeks claiming that
    the strand we had done had broken again. NOT!!! 

Jim
http://www.forrest-design.com
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