Why Integrity Sometimes Means Saying, “No.”

There is never a time when an expert craftsman or a business owner likes to tell a client no. It’s a painful situation for everyone involved. It occasionally leads to hurt feelings and in the Internet age, negative reviews. As a small, family-run business that supports eight families in our community, both the loss of income and potential for negative reviews hurt.

So, why would we do that? Why would we ever turn away work? Why would we risk alienating a client or potential client after working so hard to earn their business? Well, there’s an interesting axiom that goes, “Every behavior serves a function.” So, what possible function could us turning away a client or a job serve? Simply put, we are trying to prevent real harm to our clients and to maintain our integrity.

For our clients, though unfortunate, there are times that a treasured piece of jewelry is ultimately beyond repair. Now, you might point out that another jeweler agreed to perform the work, and that may be true. But for us, if we can reasonably see that a repair will not, in fact, fix the issue, we won’t do the work. At some point down the line, the structural integrity of the jewelry will fail. It might result in a stone falling out or the loss of the entire piece. Either way, the impact is far more severe and painful than a hard but honest conversation on the front end.

For us, our business is built upon one thing – trust. That is the only reason that someone would leave a valued possession with us. If we were to perform work that we reasonably expected to would fail, we would be letting everyone down, and our reviews would reflect that. We want to be your jeweler and to have a long relationship, but that can only happen if there is trust that we will be honest and do exceptional work that we stand behind. And that’s what we’re here to do.