Waiting times for watch repairs have always been the cause of extensive discussions with customers. A few days ago, a long-standing customer demanded a full explanation as to why his watch of a fine Swiss brand, and a very complicated one at that, had to remain at the parent company for over a year. In my experience, it is difficult for customers to understand the reason for such long lead times, and it is not easy for them to surrender to the fact that they have to part with their watch for months or even up to two years in some cases... First of all, it must be understood that it is not that it takes months or years for a service to be carried out, in the sense of the time needed for the technician to 'work' on the piece, but that there is a 'queue' to be respected, a bit like when you book a particular diagnostic examination in April and they give us availability in August, if not later. We are often asked to adapt the service workshop to the high demand for work from users. In this regard, it is true that in some cases it can happen that someone is understaffed, but when, for example, a workshop has seven watchmakers and there are normally around two hundred repairs in the queue, then sixty to ninety days to return a watch is reasonably normal. To do better would not be possible and neither is it conceivable to hire more specialised technicians, it would be a heavy commitment for the company with exaggerated costs that would be reflected in the prices of interventions. In any case, the average time to carefully carry out a normal maintenance of, say, a hand-wound watch (total overhaul of the movement, i.e. disassembly of every single part, washing, reassembly, lubrication, aesthetic treatment), from the moment the timepiece arrives in the hands of the technician, is one and a half to two days. To this must be added five or six days for inspection, making a total of eight or ten days. In cases where the watch takes the road to the workshop of the parent company, in Italy or Switzerland, the time varies from brand to brand. It goes without saying that if the piece goes to Switzerland, the wait will be even longer, as shipping times (packaging, customs and administrative formalities, sometimes complex) will be added. Last but not least, there are the cases of special restorations with lathe reconstructions of movement parts that are now exhausted on the spare parts shelves, or sophisticated repairs carried out only by a very few expert master watchmakers. In any case, time will count for nothing if our treasure is eventually restored to be as perfect as it was at the moment of 'birth', so a little patience will be the only thing to use while waiting for the precious watch to be returned.
