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Suspect Customers


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Once in while, I come across customers who come over and say, I changed the battery a couple of months ago, the watch stopped. When opened, I find a Made-in-China battery in the watch. I tell the customer, I do not use this brand, the customer insists that he or she have changed the battery here.

 

Other times (rarely) the customer take out the good battery and put this battery in other watch, and forget to put the dead battery in the watch and bring the watch to me. When opened, there is no battery in side. I do every battery change in front of the customer on the counter in a small retail store. Still the customer does not get ashamed on this.

 

Some times I also paste a small sticker with month and year inside the case back with my initials.

 

I stick to only one (90% batteries) Energizer brand, and the rest 10 % are Maxell brand which enables me to identify my battery (not always 100 % because some one else might be using this brand of battery)

 

What do you do to identify your battery.

 

Jas

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Now not watches

But some years ago we sold and installed smoke detectors and it was worrying that I would get called back in 3 weeks to a flat battery

so I bought a UV pen and torch wrote the date on the battery with my initials funny how many dates wore off when they were screwed to a ceiling.

I still do it today with remote batteries

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I print out a guarantee for every single battery, I write a description of the watch onto this. On the rare occasion someone tries to screw me over. I point out the facts in no uncertain terms & replace.

No point in causing a fracas from such a low cost item.

 

Usually if you let them know your no fool, they only do it once.

 

Lee

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Usually if you let them know your no fool, they only do it once. Lee

 

Most of my customers know I am no fool, but when you get new customers, they think, they are the smartest people on this earth, this situation arises. I get about one customer a month who tries to outplay me, but I never let them do it.

 

Carry on....

Jas

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I've had people bring back keys that I haven't cut saying they want there money back coz it doesn't work. They get aggresive when you tell them they didn't get it cut by you. The other keycutters name usually gives it away.

Even had one come back and tell me that I cut the wrong one off a bunch of keys and didn't want to give the other one back in exchange.

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I resolved the issue of people bringing the key cut elsewhere to me that saying that it does not work. Now, every key that goes out of my store have letter "K" punched on these. Still I get crazy people coming to my store and complaining about the key I cut did not work, in fact that key mostly have been cut by big box stores.

 

I check my machine if it need calibration twice a month.

The main mistake we (some time I but most of times my wife) do is selecting a wrong blank. Once the customer show the key with "K" punched on it, it have full guarantee ranging from the replacement of key to full refund of the cost charged for the key, nothing more than that (refund happens only a few times a year)

 

Carry on...

Jas

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many years ago when i worked for t acustomer came in 1st thing on a saturday morning ."you cut this key yesterday for my 80yr old mother it dosent go in the door ,had to get a locksmith out etc etc bla h blah whai the f---k you gona do bout it ----" nothing i replied after his 10 minit tirade of abuse(by the way it said automagic on the key)

dont you just love the public

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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many years ago when i worked for t acustomer came in 1st thing on a saturday morning ."you cut this key yesterday for my 80yr old mother it dosent go in the door ,had to get a locksmith out etc etc bla h blah whai the f---k you gona do bout it ----" nothing i replied after his 10 minit tirade of abuse(by the way it said automagic on the key)

dont you just love the public

 

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: we have had this too, with shoes and keys.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 11 months later...

As above. Proof of purchase is essential, with consumer transactions. Usually taking the form of a receipt although a credit card statment could also do the job.

 

Combine that with a unique UV security stamp on both the receipt and the battery/ watch lid and you have a good solution.

see here: http://www.speedystamps.co.uk/stamp-pro ... nk-stamps/

You can get any standard quality small stamp made up and just buy a bottle of UV ink from ebay etc.

 

It would be uneconomical for anyone to forge this security solution, but of course you would have to use it for a few years without inforcement in order to give your existing customers a grace period.

 

H

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  • 4 weeks later...

I think UV Ink stamps are a good idea but maybe taking things a bit far when guarantee cards with case numbers will more than suffice!

 

We have had the odd Customer return a watch with the wrong guarantee.. falsely believing they'd had it changed, when in actual fact it was a different watch of theirs! After pointing out the different case numbers, they always comply!

 

I'd be interested to hear the opinion of any Timpson employee (wageslave?) on the lifetime guarantee batteries and also the 'rhino' soles! Do you get many returned and do you consider it a good idea?

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Sorry for the late reply dean.

I like the lifetime batteries, no immediate extra work, but more money in the till.

It does get irritating when you get them back but you can usually get a new strap or glass or even just a clean out of them.

The rhino is a different matter. I don't think it has taken off quite so well. I'm not a fan of it. There are no problems when you have sold them to a customer to place on a new shoe, but when they are sold by some idiot in place of a new resin or leather sole it causes all sorts of trouble. The guarantee states that we will replace as long as the shoes are worth doing, so when they come with holes straight through their soles I always refuse to do them unless they have a new leather sole on first. I personally see this as reasonable but customers tend to disagree. They often come in to get soles only done when their heels obviously need doing. This to me seems to make the idea of the rhino pointless to us and the customer.

Please add your own punctuation and paragraphs, I really have no idea!!

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