As rep collectors, we love to go on about how amazingly close reps are to the real deal, and how absurdly overpriced gen watches have become. But there’s one thing the rep world will never beat the gen industry at — aftersales service.
Let me tell you a little story. It all started on March 30th. I remember the date vividly because it was the day the EU switched to summer time. Around midnight, my wife — bless her heart — decided to surprise me with a random act of affection: she changed the time on my IWC Pilot Chronograph.
Now, in 26 years of marriage, she’s never done this before. And, of course, she had no idea that manually adjusting the time on a watch with a day/date function right at midnight is like playing Russian roulette with gears.
As expected, the day and date wheels got out of sync. The day changes at midnight, but the date now changes at noon. Fantastic.
So the next day, I took the watch to an IWC AD in Regensburg. Now, if you’ve ever lived in Germany, you’ll know that "customer service" here is more of a theoretical concept than an actual thing. After one snobby encounter too many, I decided to skip their “legendary” service and contacted the IWC concierge online instead — thankfully, I had registered the watch online when I bought it for a 6 years warranty extension, made it totally 8 years.
The concierge got back to me within 24 hours and sent over a mailing kit. A week after sending the watch in, I received a repair estimate: full service, plus... hands replacement. Why the hands? No clue. But since the service was fully covered, I didn’t ask questions.
Three weeks later, the watch is serviced, the hands are new, and I’m now waiting for it to be delivered — scheduled for the Friday after the Labour Day holiday. I assume everything will be running as smoothly as my wife’s well-intentioned chaos.
At the end of the day, people pay a premium for gen watches for all sorts of reasons. For me, this is it — the service. In the rep M2M world, we always say: buy the seller, not the rep. In the gen world? You buy the service, not just the watch. In the past, I’ve experienced Cartier’s aftersales service, and it was nothing short of excellent. Now, I can hopefully add IWC to that list as well — and I sincerely hope this isn’t just a lucky exception.
