The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I told a lady a BUK about this post heres what she said.

Hi Phil,

I’m sorry to hear about your hat. Unfortunately we’re out of stock here in the UK office, but should be receiving some new ones from Switzerland in about six weeks time. If you would like one, please send me a reminder email nearer to the time and I will make sure one is sent out to you.

Thank you for drawing attention to the post on this forum. Customer service is paramount here at Breitling and I’m extremely concerned that this emphasis on customer satisfaction appears to not always be demonstrated in stores selling our watches. Breitling do conduct Instruments for Professionals training seminars for all distributors of Breitling watches. The next one is being held on the 19th of May and you can rest assured that customer care and the true value of our customers (what is a great watch if there is no one to wear it?) will be one of the issues raised.

Unfortunately I am not able to register on the Breitling Source forum as our office network does not allow you to register on forums or social networking websites for security reasons. This is very frustrating as I would like to contact the poster and ask which AD it was where he and his girlfriend had this trouble. I would like to reassure you that Breitling is not a prejudiced company. We respect and value all our customers and know how truly important each and every one is to our company. It’s a real shame that certain individuals may be underming people’s faith in the Breitling brand.

My advice to you is, next time you are in your local distributors and receive less then exceptional customer service, please get the name of the person serving and email or call us here at the office to report them.

I am truly sorry to hear that this was not a one off occurrence and I can only hope that you know better than to think these people are true representations of Breitling.

Kind regards


Ruby Eadon

BREITLING UK LIMITED


So ashUK I will pm you her details and you can speak with her direclty about this.

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a very good point - and that is the reason why I will not wear a Casio to go looking at £2000 watches. They must get X amount of "tyrekickers" in all day every day, and maybe it is their experience that only certain people actually make a purchase. I am not condoning the unacceptable attitude towards customers at all, in fact I detest this kind of snobbery, BUT...if you were selling Porsche or Maserati, what would you think if someone rolled up in a Fiat Punto? I do agree that the cold treatment to the OP's girlfriend was way out of hand, btw.

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Oyster Date '78, Blackbird chrono DLC '10, Blackbird chrono' 02, Navitimer Fighters '02, Aerospace Evo , Seamaster Chrono Diver 300' 02, Carrera cbm2110

Ash get in touch with the contact I gave you at BUK she can sort it for you and hopefully you will be happy with what they do,She has been very helpfull to me in the past and I know she will watch this thread and its replies so if you have an issue with any BUK dealer raise it here and she will see it.

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i tend to dress down alot when going to buy something pricey, simply to see how i get treat as just any old punter then if they treat me like crap i dont buy from them but ensure i pop in at some point down the line if i really wanna piss the guy off.

did it with my first new car, went in to a dealer got treated like i couldnt afford it but then they kept mailing me advertising, so went back down during the week in work clothes (suit) then spoke to the manager who it turned out was the rude salesman, dropped my business card on his desk and asked to be removed from the mailing list.

he looked quite miffed.

I think you should and then spit all their hypocrisy in their faces.

Well I've sent a quick email to BUK, just saying my side of things. The more I think about it, the more I think that they need a swift kick up the @&$£, which could do them some good. Plus the fact that someone actually guessed the branch I'd been to, based on where I live and the fact that they had experienced the same 'service', I felt something had to be done. Goldsmiths did reply saying that they would ring me a few days ago, but nothing.

On another hand, I always wear one of my watches when I go out, in fact I wear mine pretty much all of the time except for work. Either they think it's a fake, or similar, or maybe they are just snobby?! I completely agree with the sentiments about 'tyre kickers' but as I said before, the genuine Breitling strap had been paid for, so why the attitude?

Cheers

Ash

matbe they think you bought it for a fake!!!!!!!!!!!!

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What... they ran out of coffee?

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Chris
Club Member #0070
2009 TT Chrono Evo w/Rose gold, blue face
2009 Airwolf w/black face, Co-Pilot module
2009 TT Lady Cockpit w/Mother-of-Pearl, Diamond face for the wife

Although this thread is about Breitling ADs, I dont think the snobbery is just limited to some Breitling ADs. Rolex ADs are probably worse!!

Slightly off topic, while in Japan a couple of years ago, every AD (incl. the Panerai boutique nr. Harajuku), I was treated like a VIP. I was dressed in shorts and t-shirt, wearing a TAG Carrera. The Omega girls (elsewhere) were almost gushing to help. I guess it must be the difference between Japanese society and the UK

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Oyster Date '78, Blackbird chrono DLC '10, Blackbird chrono' 02, Navitimer Fighters '02, Aerospace Evo , Seamaster Chrono Diver 300' 02, Carrera cbm2110

yup in the UK we get treated like crap

the irony in my mind is that given that most of the people that treat you like that are the spotty sales assistants not owners or managers that they have the cheek to scoff and yet (i relaise i am about to tar and feather but hey) they work in shop that sell items that alot of the time they cannot get close to affording at RRP.

A mate of mine is a builder and on the way home from work the other year he was passing the BMW dealer so decided to pop in to look at the new Z4 (or whatever it was). Since he was wearing dirty jeans and t-shirt, no one would give him the time of day.

Unbeknown to them the guy is a seriously rich guy with a Rolls-Royce, E-type Jag, TR-4, Merc, and a Harley amongst the others in his garage.

The following week he drove to the garage at the weekend dressed in non-working clothes.

"Remember me?" he said. "I'm the scruffy b*stard you refused to speak to last week. Just wanted to show you my new car." Parked outside was a brand new Porsche he'd just bought for something like £50,000 cash!

Don't judge a book by it's cover!

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For more information on identifying Breitling replicas, please visit my web site
http://f4buz.com/watches/breitling/fakes/fakes.html

X
So true.

... unless it's a $175 "Book of Breitling" ???

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Chris
Club Member #0070
2009 TT Chrono Evo w/Rose gold, blue face
2009 Airwolf w/black face, Co-Pilot module
2009 TT Lady Cockpit w/Mother-of-Pearl, Diamond face for the wife

Eleven years ago I went through VW dealers. I wanted to buy a new mark IV Golf GTI. They had just come out and had over six months waiting period. I tried to find one available in a showroom. Last one I visited with a friend, we were 21 but looked more like 16. There were 6 sales people talking and telling jokes in a corner. They didn´t give us the time or day. We waited 15 minutes then my friend said to them. We would like to buy this car is there who would like to sell it or do we go next door to buy an Audi A3? They were almost tripping over each other rushing to us. Drove the new car out as one happy guy. After that I always got the best service.

My friend who is very wealthy went to a Mercedes dealer in a sweatsuit. He would´ve bought a car but did´nt get any service. So he walked pissed up to the sales people and said I would like to buy a Mercedes with cash. Then walked up to a showcase and pointed at a S-class scale model and said. I´ll buy that, but would´ve bought the the "bigger" one if any of you would have done you´re work properly. He bought a BMW the same day.

It´s very common to pre judge people by their appearance. By doing so you often make the wrong assumption. Very easy mistake to make.

Certainly this behavior is not limited to Breitling ADs, or even watch dealers, or even jewelers. I own a BMW that I purchased 10 years ago when I was a graduate student. I went to a lot of BMW dealers before I bought mine, and then I have moved a few times and gotten the car serviced and many more. Not being much of a high-roller (especially when I was a grad student) I have run the whole gamut in customer service experiences. They are all different. Leo Tolstoy wrote that all happy families are happy in the same way, whereas unhappy families are all unhappy in their own way. The same applies to businesses. Good businesses, especially those that sell a premium product, are almost always good for the same reasons. Bad businesses are always coming up with new and interesting ways to blow you away with their disregard for you and your property.

I bought my car from a dealer that makes a point of treating every customer who walks in, regardless of how they are dressed, with the same level of courtesy. Of course, they are still not flawless at this, but I have seen people walk in off the street wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants and take a new 7-series out for a test drive. Here in Seattle, where clothing is not well-correlated with wealth, this is a prudent business decision for them.

Then there was the BMW dealership in Pennsylvaina were I walked into the service center to get a quote on some bodywork, and the service manager was too busy telling a story to another salesperson that he kept me standing there for 5 minutes. But even worse, every single sentence of this story (and I am not exaggerating) had at least two obscenities in it, usually 4 or 5. Now I am not easily offended, and I swear all the time, but even a sheltered academic like me knows not to do that in a business environment. I have not experienced a situation like that before or since in any store of any kind, whether it be Wal-mart or the Ritz-Carlton. Just like Tolstoy says, that business was "unhappy" in its own way.

In a city where we used to live, my wife once walked into a jewelry store looking to spend several thousand dollars on a ring. This is a jeweler who advertises on billboards and on the radio like mad. According to them, they are the place to buy quality jewelry. She was in her mid-twenties and dressed quite well: leather jacket, designer purse, nice shoes, and jeans but very stylish. After treating her like a leper for a few minutes, one of the salespeople approached her and told her something like, "I don't think that you will find anything in your price range in this store. You might be better off somewhere else." This was before they even asked her what she was looking for and what price range she was looking in. Before they kicked her out, she had even seen a few pieces of interest that were well within her capacity to buy. Wow. I mean, I still can't believe that one. In an industry that operates very much by word-of-mouth recommendations, I can't believe that a business would not only loose one potential customer for life, but also loose all of their friends and family, too.

The competing high-end jeweler in that same city has been growing by leaps and bounds. I always had great experiences there. They told me that they get a lot of ex-customers from the other place.

Mofongo

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There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness." --Dave Barry