The new 11,000-square-foot service center is state of the art.
Everyone familiar with luxury timepieces knows that service is an integral part of the purchase. (In fact, we covered that subject recently here.) Chopard, however, has taken the concept of service to an all-new level by building an 11,000-square-foot state-of-the-art service center the Miami suburb of Coral Gables.
When a watch comes in, it is taken apart and carefully inspected in the new service center.
We had the distinct pleasure of being one of the few journalists invited to tour the $2 million facility recently and were definitely impressed with the breadth and scope of the full-floor service center that will coddle both end-customers’ and retail client’s customers’ timepieces with extra care.
An amazing amount of extra parts, including movements, are kept on hand at the Chopard Service Center.
The center offers expanded service, including custom engraving on a laser engraver and laser soldering in house for watch lugs, etc. More importantly, though, it boasts 12 watchmakers, a dedicated quality control area with advanced machines and technical analysts for extreme testing, dedicated polishing and cleaning rooms, a shameless supply of parts and much more.
the Chopard Miami service center has 12 watchmakers, and specialized testing rooms, etc.
With a true commitment to customer service, Chopard vows to reduce turnaround time on maintenance and repair of its timepieces for the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean to a mere 10 days (or five if the watch is still under warranty)!
“We found that when we analyzed why watch repairs were taking six to eight weeks, most of the time was spent with the watches in transit and with the enormous amounts of administrative paper work that goes along with that,” says Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, co-President of the brand. (He actually said a lot more, but we will cover that in an upcoming “Moment in Time” write-up so stay tuned.)
The Miami based Chopard Service Center also houses a 5S training facility.
While the center has been a focal point for Scheufele for nearly 10 years, the exact planning began about five years ago and the center came to fruition in the past 2 years. Top Swiss watchmakers have come from the brand’s Fleurier and Geneva workshops to oversee the training and ensure the craftsmanship taking place in Miami is exactly as it is in Switzerland. The plan is for the Center’s top watchmaker to train in Switzerland on repairing the Manufacture L.U.C calibers so that even these repairs can be done on site in Florida next year. The service center also plays home to a state-of-the-art 5S training workshop that is designed to offer interactive training so that local jewelers in various Latin American cities can learn how to do simple repairs on the spot.
