You must own two watches!

Simple solution. Own two watches... A lot of the people on this forum have another watch already. And many Patek Philippe owners have another watch they can fall back on because most Patek Philippe owners had another watch prior to their Patek Philippe.

1. Let me ask you a question... How many salespeople who sell said watches would actually tell prospective customers that it takes a long time to get their watches serviced?
2. Very hard. You have no idea.
3. Very little. Most mechanical Patek Philippes are serviced by authorized service centers and many owners insist upon it. Quartz models are an exception.
4. Not much more than you think. It's a captive audience. They will pay Patek Philippe prices and they'll have to wait as long as it takes. Not much revenue is lost due to long service times. And little is to be gained if a 1-2 month turnaround time were the case.

Patek service times from a business perspective

By: unpollo2 : April 16th, 2015-09:34

we have all heard of crazy service times from 3 months to a year. my question is from a business point. 1- how many people would be deterred from buying a Patek due to this outrageous wait time 2- how hard would it be to scale up the service centers to sp...

All questions are relevant.

By: dr.kol : April 16th, 2015-09:43

I guess that it is not that easy to find competent watch makers. I saw in AP Boutique in Singapore a fully qualified watch maker who needed an forty five minutes to extend the bracelet of a new RO. Or in a Blancpain Boutique their watch maker could not pu...

quicker

By: watch-er : April 16th, 2015-11:40

Every service I have had with Henri Stern the watch was completed well in advance of the estimated time.

A long time ago

By: dr.kol : April 16th, 2015-12:14

I was dealing with a very bad AD, nowadays a former AD. Those days I had a long delay. When taking care of services through Patek Philippe Geneva & London Salons, I have been 100% satisfied with the - speed - quality of the work - pricing Best, Kari

One issues I think is the issue of 'qualified* personnel...

By: Ornatus-Mundi : April 16th, 2015-12:26

which - frankly speaking - needs to be as much qualified - perhaps even more so - than those watchmakers who produce the watches. The reason is that service watchmakers not only need to identify the cause of problems (and thus need a more broad training, ...

Very well put, Magnus. Excellent points and exacte. [nt]

By: ThomasM : April 16th, 2015-12:29

Difficult to answer and to give a right statistics but I'll try to give an answer.

By: Mark in Paris : April 16th, 2015-12:49

The service performance is something we look closely at when it is time to ask for one and sometimes, but in a much lesser extent, when we buy a watch. To begin with, let me say that many of the questions you ask may apply to every brands, even the smalle...

You must own two watches!

By: patrick_y : April 16th, 2015-14:37

Some frank "truths"

By: MTF : April 17th, 2015-04:23

unpollo2 Thanks for the questions. To answer your last question..... Brand executives that cannot be named, from a number of 'haute horlogerie' brands, have told me after a few beers that: They do not make money from repair services despite customers comp...

this is contradictory to car dealerships with repair centers

By: unpollo2 : April 17th, 2015-06:40

car dealerships without repair centers attached have a hard time surviving. the repair centers are revenue generators that provide steady cashflow for both overheads. interesting that watch service centers are not. i wonder, would it be possible to pay a ...

Independent Repair Centres use this business model

By: MTF : April 17th, 2015-06:59

Yes. That is why there are "Independent" repair centres boasting accreditation by some brands or with ex-personnel of brands. The next questions you ask are the bulk of the replies you already got on this thread: Do you trust your repairer? What does accr...

patek time to service

By: nice2guy : April 20th, 2015-13:25

I would save my money. Dr. Kol and watch-er above seem to indicate service times are no problem. lol

Indeed, service times are not a problem.

By: dr.kol : April 20th, 2015-17:45

I do not want to take the role of defending the Brand. However, I have noticed that very often the claims are originating from places from where the AD need to send the watch to Geneva. In these cases we need to separate the service itself and the logisti...