Trouble in watch land..

Welcome to entry two of my blog – I will be providing an insight to a major challenge which I have had to face for the passed two months in my role as Brand Manager at Cool Time Equity.

U-Boat watches is our largest brand that Cool Time distributes into Australia. We have a lot of pressure on the amount of stockists this brand is supplied to and we have to reach budgets that U-Boat watches have set for Australia and this can be very difficult to achieve due to many reasons.

When a store shuts down and goes broke – we then lose a stockist, when the Australian dollar is down we lose money on the margins we are provided, competition is also a huge factor when it comes to sales on a particular brand and reputation.

As of recent we have been having some service issues on this brand. This means that when a customers watch has broken and U-Boat in Italy do not have the part available in stock to fix the issue then a customer may have to wait up to a year to have their watch repaired. This is a major issue not only for the customer, but also for the store that the customer purchased the watch from. The store will then put the blame onto Cool Time Equity as we deal directly with U-Boat in Italy and we are the only people who can.

Unfortunately for all parties we have a stockist in Sydney who has had a bad run with watch returns on U-Boat. This has been a major problem for me as there isn’t anything I can do when U-Boat do not provide a time-frame of when I can have a watch repaired for a customer. This affects the store, the customer, Cool Time and the reputation of U-Boat and it is my job to keep everyone positive about the issue.

I have been receiving emails from this particular store outlining the anger of the customer and of the store that I have not been able to repair this watch within a reasonable time frame. I have to take the blame because in this industry the customer is always right and I do not want the store to think less of the brand and its quality assurance.

Unfortunately this week another two more repairs have been returned back to this store in Sydney. Due to this I received an email to inform Cool Time that the store will no longer be purchasing anymore U-Boat stock. This means I have to replace the store, which is a very difficult task to do. I also have to explain to U-Boat why we have lost this customer, which is difficult because I cannot blame the brand, as U-Boat will think we do not support them well enough.

In future, I will be outlining a time frame of repair to my stores of 6 months. This is to cover myself if the watch takes that long to be repaired. It will be my personal challenge to have the watch repaired within 2 months and that way the customer and the store will be impressed with the service provided if the watch is returned under the specified time frame. I decided to make this decision because I am aware that all watch brands around the world can have issues with quality and therefore If I can improve the service; then at least that customer still may purchase a U-Boat again in future knowing that if the watch breaks, it will be repaired in an efficient time frame.

Now its time to find a new stockist In Sydney for U-Boat…. Watch this space.