Warranty Work

Per LHC PL 20 August 1996 “Warranties,” there will be times when we will need to take care of a customer’s repair at no charge to the customer. However, just because the customer isn’t charged does not mean that we should just let the store front the bill.

When Inventory is buying goods from vendors, they should check their warranty policy. If a vendor is not willing to stand behind their goods then they probably don’t produce a product we would want to sell to our customers. It’s best to work with vendors who are willing to have the same coverage we extend to our customers. If something were to happen, then we would just need to send it back to the vendor and there would be no threat of us having to eat the cost.

Inventory needs to insure the products they purchase are of high quality. To do otherwise, puts us at risk and harms our PR. If Inventory happens to buy goods of low quality, unexpectedly, and the customer then brings it back for warranty work; we need to take care of the item per our warranty agreement to our customers. We of course would first try to send it back to the vendor so they can take responsibility for it. If something happens and this is not an option, we would need to take care of it within the store. The cost of the repair would be stated to the store.

The above procedure should also be applied to any of the other vendors we use routinely. If we purchase something from them and it was not a quality item, which later needs repair, they should take care of the item for us.

From wholesale dealers we purchase a lot of estate/preowned items. When we purchase these items there should be an agreement on what they will warranty and what they won’t. For example, sometimes we will purchase a watch from them, which they say has not been serviced yet. We of course only want to sell watches that have been serviced. He can choose to do this himself or he can choose to have us do it for him and bill him or he can lower the price of the item to include the service we will need to do. Either way an agreement needs to be made on each item. It should be noted in the inventory screen for that item what the warranty is from these dealers. If then in the future an item comes back, we will know if we can charge the dealer for the repair of the item or if we need to cover it.

Therefore, when Repair gets in a customer or stock item for repair, they need to see if the vendor will warranty it or if we originally did the service and we will need to cover it. It would not behoove us to pay for all repairs in a rote manner, when another should take responsibility for it. Repair should not for sake of ease just send it to our repair guys to fix it. This is an easy way for us to lose money.

The most ideal scene is for us to get the vendors we deal with to stand behind their products and extend a warranty. This of course is different for estate/preowned items that we purchase from vendors. These we need to establish an agreement with each guy. If they were not willing to warranty the item then we would need to send it to another department for them to check the item out thoroughly before we display the item.

If an item has gone through Repair to be qual’ed before being displayed and then if the item comes back for warranty work that they should have caught, then Repair should be stated for that repair as they obviously did not qualify it that well before hand.

The cost to repair unserviced watches that come back for warranty service or watches that come back due to undetectable service problems will be added to the cost of the watch (as it would had the repair been done) and commissions and stats will be adjusted accordingly.

If a new item slips by that was not of quality or not saleable, then it is Inventory that must take responsibility and handle as they should have caught this before it became a problem.