Switching Jewelers

Today was the absolute last straw. When we called J. Brown, hoping to hear that they were finished with the ring (you know, since they apparently will not bother to actually call us with any sort of update), we were told that they needed an additional one or two weeks to finish the ring. They gave us more bullshit excuses. Last time, they were held up by the estimate that took them a day to give us, this time they were held up because they had to ship the diamond off to the manufacturer to put the materials together. This makes it the second week in a row that they have completely flaked out on their proposed time-line. I just about went through the roof.

The woman on the phone got really nasty and even said "well, these things usually take 4 to 6 weeks." As I told her, that's fine and good, so just tell us that upfront. If you commit to supplying us with a ring in 10-14 days, then I expect a ring in 10-14 days. Period. End of discussion. I was tolerant of their excuse, albeit irritated, when they told us they needed another week due to their delay with the estimate (though that made no sense, as I had mentioned in the previous post). Fine, whatever, as long as we get the ring, then fine. But they haven't even started working on the ring by the end of this week. We were told that the emeralds they had shipped in were no good and that they were waiting on another shipment of emeralds. Absolute bullshit! If you know that you promised your customers this very slim deadline for the ring, you'd, at the very least, have a few different pairs of emeralds shipped in to choose from, as other jewelers frequently do.

On top of that, when I expressed my irritation that I was told 10-14 days and they were now pushing it to at least double that time period, the woman became very nasty on the phone. The least they could have done was offer a discount, or at the very least, apologize for being incompetent and promising something they couldn't deliver. That, to me, is just amazing. Absolutely amazing.

We told them to cancel our order and that someone else will be doing the engagement ring now. Sure it will take longer, but a company that promises something they can't deliver, then refuses to ever call us to keep us updated about what's going on, should not get our busines. If there are complications with the ring, then the very least you can do is call your client to let them know that the ring will not be done by the promised time-line and then they should ask if the couple is still interested in doing the ring with this jeweler. I don't know, this has been my experience at other jewelers, why would J. Brown be any different?

We will be going to Edward Arthur, and hopefully they will be more competent than J. Brown, you know, by giving us a time-line they can stick to, not feeding us lame excuses, one after another, and letting us know what the hell is going on with our diamond.

I'm really just shocked... They seemed so perfect, and this whole thing made them out to be incredibly incompetent, quick to make excuses, and nasty when questioned. Needless to say, we will definitely not be getting the wedding bands through them in addition to us no longer getting the engagement ring through them.