BAH HUMBUG!!
I am in the mall shopping on Christmas Eve and I see a sign for Master Jewelers. In the twelve years I have resided in Alpharetta, I have never heard of this store. When I hear of master jeweler, I am expecting a jeweler who does custom work and has unique pieces. I walk in and start browsing. As the jeweler is working with a customer I hear him explaining his policy and I simply say "So let me understand, you don't do refunds, simply exchanges". Instead of just simply saying "Yes, that's correct", he goes off on some diatribe about why he doesn't do returns and includes derogatory comments about the chain stores. One of the claims he made was just a ridiculous generalization and I said, "I have never heard of that in my life and I buy a lot of jewelry". He did not like this comment and proceeded to get loud and continue to talk nonsense. At this point I honestly could not understand what he was saying because it sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher, (Womp, Womp!)
This guy clearly had issues that had nothing to do with me, I was just the lucky target. Shockingly, he was doing this while the customer was still standing there trying to get additional assistance. He was extremely unprofessional and that is a serious red flag when dealing with jewelers. I simply left the store, (intact I might add).
Jewelry has always been my thing, I have had custom pieces designed, and I have purchased everything from diamonds to stones and beyond. As a rule, I don't purchase jewelry or have repairs done in the mall. I have purchased batteries in the past but even that has discontinued since I have found a local jeweler. I like a very personal relationship with my jeweler and I appreciate having him conveniently located.
Fellow Yelpers heed these words:
When it comes to jewelers, you need to pick someone with whom you can build a relationship. He or she should be very professional and never make derogatory comments and generalizations regarding other types of jewelers. You absolutely have to be able to trust your jeweler because there will be times when you may have to leave an item overnight for repair. You want to trust that business is going to be handled in a professional manner and that care will be given to your jewelry.
Trust is also important if you want to have a custom piece made and you leave some of the creative process up to your jeweler. (I had a couple of pieces made from other gold pieces that I had and I had no idea of how these pieces would turn out). I simply had to trust the jeweler and the process which I did and everything worked out beautifully.
Remember that your initial encounter with any business is an indication of how you will be treated during future encounters. If a jeweler is a "hot head" and becomes aggressive and unprofessional during a simple verbal exchange, imagine what would happen if you had a dispute or needed to return an item. You already know that things are not going to go well.
Beware of a jeweler who has unfair blanket policies that tend to "punish" everyone. It is one thing to have a policy that says "no returns, exchanges only" (Master Jewelers) and quite another that says "returns within 5 days if the item is returned in original condition". A fair policy allows conditions and choices. No one wants to spend $500 for an item and then be forced to try and find other items to equal that value.
For me that is not an option unless I am dealing with my favorite store where I shop frequently.
On Christmas Eve, when the other jewelers are very busy with customers, (Pandora had a line outside of the store), this particular jeweler had only one customer in his store. Hmmmmm? Wonder why?
Okay Ray-Ray, you claim that you have been in the mall for twenty-three years, yet you have no Yelp presence. So today, I make you relevant. Merry Christmas!
********Figure it out, Master Jewelers has been around for 23 years but has only 99 likes and 7 visits according to their Facebook page while my master jeweler, (RK and Company-Alpharetta), who has been open for only 5 years, not only has 1904 likes and 63 visits on his Facebook page, but also has a perfect 5 star rating on Yelp.
It bears repeating: PROFESSIONALISM IS EVERYTHING! read more