How to answer the hardest question you routinely get in your jewelry business

“Could you just?”

“Could you just shorten this chain?”

“Could you just tighten this prong?”

“Could you just make this ring a 1/4 size smaller?”

Ah yes, the “could you just” question. It’s the dealing with the public aspect of your business that can drive you nuts. When customers have only a fraction of the knowledge that you do, those questions are harder and harder to answer – the more your knowledge grows, does it feel like their knowledge is shrinking? That’s the gap made by your growing expertise.

Taking the complex in your jewelry business and making it understandable

It’s those tasks that look simple to an outsider – just tighten a prong, just shorten a chain. And to be clear, they are simpler tasks for you to do than they would be for someone with no experience, but I also wouldn’t call them easy, and neither would you.

We all know that a “could you just” questions doesn’t have an easy answer or an easy solution – we see the complexity. That request to “shorten their chain” could involve delicate soldering or laser work, or there may have been undisclosed rhodium plating.

That prong tightening could disclose a weak or porous prong, or reveal a chip on the diamond that was hidden underneath. We know that the “could you just” question comes with a long flow chart of answers.

So how to manage these “could you just” questions when they arise from your jewelry customers?

As I am sure you are aware by now, I’m going to tell you that IT DEPENDS.

Do you have a repair system in place for your own work? How about a repair system for other jewelry? What are your policies, and what jobs do you say yes to and which do you say no to?

If you only do repair work on jewelry that you have made, then your stock answer could be “I am so sorry, we only repair work that is made in our studio. We recommend that you return to the place that you purchased it from for any alterations or repairs. Or you can seek out a repair jeweler in your region (give referrals if you can)”

Keep this text somewhere convenient and then copy paste as needed.

If you do more general repair work, do you have your own internal price list? Do you have language to explain the repair work to be done? Does that language protect you against something unforeseen? Do you have a ticketing system to track repairs? Do you offer guarantees?

Having these kinds of answers in place will help you quickly answer a “could you just” question. Imagine it – customer asks “could you just size this diamond eternity band down 1/4 size?” “Could you just tighten that prong?”

“Sure! According to my labor chart, resizing an eternity band will be $500.”

“Prong tightening may reveal weaknesses in the prong itself, if we discover any porosity, we will stop the work to rebuild the prong for $250, are you OK with that? Great! Fill out this form.”

Do yourself a huge time-saving favor:

Take an hour this week to answer some of these questions for your clients in advance.

Come up with a few internal policies, ones based on your time and financial constraints. Give yourself this as a roadmap for how you’ll answer future questions. Keep a document, a spreadsheet, or create a template file to keep it in and copy paste these answers as needed.

Then, reframe some of these answers for the public – use language and give guidelines in ways that they will understand, and lastly, add them to your website FAQ. This gives you a future shortcut – the next time that you get these questions, you will now have a place to send them, or at least you’ll have some copy paste language to send in an email.

Lastly, if you are able, find a few repair jewelers near you that you can refer clients like this to if repair is not in your skillset. Customers love it when you give them an easy way to solve their problems.

Remember that you are the professional

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been at this, it doesn’t matter that your experience isn’t as advanced as that of someone who has been at this for 30 years – you are the professional and you are the expert of your own work. You are the expert of what tasks you can and cannot perform. It’s OK if this is only your second year in business, you still know more about jewelry than your clients do, the secret sauce is in how you communicate it!