Everything you always wanted to know about… fine watches but were afraid to ask

It’s not easy for sales staff at fine watch retailers to familiarise themselves with the multitude of specifications for each of the different models, when brands are brimming over with creativity and inventiveness. Even when they have mastered their subject, conveying this information to the customer can prove an impossible task as they become weighed down in lengthy descriptions. What does watchmaking owe Abraham-Louis Breguet, and what might the advantages of a quadruple tourbillon with spherical differential be? Do inertia blocks still serve a useful purpose? What are the different stages in servicing a watch? How much of a breakthrough are silicon escapements? What’s the truth about mystery settings?

Look and learn

Imagine the scenario: a customer comes into a store to enquire about the specific features of this or that fine watch or fine jewellery watch, and is confronted with a gaping-mouthed individual who is incapable of giving even half an answer to the kind of essential questions above. Needless to say, the chances that the customer will seek advice elsewhere are high. Aficionados who are prepared to invest a considerable sum in their watch of choice certainly deserve more than sales patter, reassuring them they have made the right choice. In particular as, more often than not, these customers are well-versed in the intricacies of watchmaking and its techniques.

Which is where the Watch@Tablet steps in. Developed by the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH) with the cooperation of the company Signage SA, this “sales tool” takes the form of a keyboard-less touchscreen notebook. It contains all the information needed to train sales staff through a series of informative visual aids. And that’s not all. Sales staff can also call on the Watch@Tablet to demonstrate one or other process to a customer that would otherwise be too complex to describe. Didn’t Napoleon himself say that a simple drawing was better than a long speech? Furthermore, the tablet can be replaced by a touchscreen, with the same application installed, which can be seamlessly fitted into the store’s furniture or interior for easy fingertip navigation.

Content on three levels

“Both a selling aid and a training tool, the Watch@Tablet works on three levels,” explains Gianfranco Ritschel, who heads the project at the FHH. “The first level concerns the brands, which can present themselves with the help of various pages or animations. The second level is given over to the competencies and knowledge a sales consultant must possess in order to do their job in a full and professional manner. The third level is a restricted area with information that only concerns the retailer, and which also incorporates tools to get sales staff thinking, such as interactive tests, and training programmes which the FHH or the brands themselves have devised. If brands so wish, they can include their own working documents in this section, such as their master books or the training packages they have developed for staff in their own distribution network. There is also a search engine that can be used to verify if a given watch, via its serial number, has been registered as stolen. The tablet is constantly updated by means of the FHH’s own encrypted and secure content management system. This means content is remotely managed, relieving users of the task.”

Gone are the days when sales staff may have lacked essential knowledge with which to perform their job. The Watch@Tablet provides all the latest information on the branch, a glossary of watch and jewellery terms, a watch selector, an encyclopaedia and a timeline, important information for after-sales services, a lesson on complications, materials and the fundamentals of fine jewellery watches, a filmed inventory of the métiers d’art, and more. All this content can be summoned using the touchscreen, and is richly illustrated with animations which double up as training tools. This open door into the very special world of watches and all it entails is sure to hold customers enthralled.

More informations:
email : watch.tablet@hautehorlogerie.org