How Times Ticking Handles an Upset Customer

There’s something businesses don’t like to talk about: sometimes things go wrong.

We repair watches and clocks, most of them decades old and many more than a century old. They come to us after being dropped, flooded, stored away for years, or repaired several times before reaching our bench. With work like this, occasionally a repair doesn’t go the way anyone expected.

And sometimes the problem has nothing to do with the repair itself. A phone call gets missed. A repair takes longer than expected. We don’t communicate something as clearly as we should. A customer leaves disappointed even though everyone started with the best intentions.

The Question We Ask Ourselves

When that happens, we try to put ourselves on the other side.

What would we be feeling if we were the customer? What outcome would feel right to us?

Those two questions have helped us make better decisions for more than four decades.

We’ve all been customers. We know things can go wrong, and we know the difference between a business that genuinely takes care of a concern and one that simply gives an answer. Sometimes the answer may be technically correct, but the experience still feels hollow.

Being Right vs. Doing Right

That’s why we’ve learned that being right and doing right aren’t always the same thing.

Sometimes we agree completely with a customer about what happened. Sometimes we see things differently. But winning an argument has never repaired a relationship.

So we try to focus on the outcome.

Sometimes that means looking at a watch or clock again. Sometimes it means repairing something at no additional charge. Sometimes it means simply listening. And sometimes it means making a decision that doesn’t make much sense to the bottom line.

We’re okay with that.

Our Warranty Is Meant to Be Used

We warranty our service and repairs for a reason. If something we repaired isn’t right, we want to know about it and have the opportunity to take care of it. That warranty isn’t just something written on a receipt – it’s there to be used. If there’s a problem, take advantage of it and let us make it right. If you have a concern about a repair we’ve completed, Contact Us. We’re happy to take another look and see if a different approach is needed.

Our goal isn’t simply to make money. It’s to gain a customer – and then keep them.

We’re proud of the thousands of customers who have trusted Times Ticking over the years. After more than 40 years in business, we’ve learned that great customer service isn’t just about when things go right – it’s about how you respond when they don’t.

We take every concern seriously.

Most people will never see the conversations that happen behind the scenes when there’s a problem. They won’t see our team discussing what happened and asking what we would want if we were on the other side.

They don’t need to.

Our goal isn’t to win the last word. It’s to look back at what we did and know we made a genuine effort to do what was right for the customer.

A watch can be repaired again. A clock can be rebuilt. Trust is much harder to fix.

Maybe that’s one of the most important lessons more than four decades in business has taught us. When something goes wrong, don’t spend all your time proving who was right. Put yourself on the other side. The right decision often looks different from there.