Business Profile
The Clockmaker: Clockmaker has plenty of time for his customers
13th March 2008
WARM and friendly, Chris Bessent (pictured) does not strike one as the archetypal image of a clockmaker. He is not in the least wizened and Newbury Business Today did not find him hunched over a workbench peering through thick spectacles when it met him at his Hungerford business.
Sat downstairs at The Clockmaker, just off the High Street, amid what seemed like hundreds of ticking clocks of all shapes and sizes, some old, some new and some very old – from the 17th century even – Chris cheerfully explains how it all began.
“It started when I was a child. Most people take for granted that something works. Me, I wanted to know how it worked and, left alone, I would take something apart to try and find out. Invariably I would wreck it, but today, with 29 years’ experience in making and repairing clocks, that curiosity has developed into a real skill. Someone once joked I could make a clock if someone simply brought me the hand – and I probably could.
“We take time, but we provide a quality service that does represent value for money. A clock isn’t something like a car that needs servicing every year, but you have to appreciate if it goes wrong after 20 or 30 years, or 100 or 150 years, then it might take some time and effort to fix it. Of course, it might not, but we will tell you, and we offer a three-year guarantee.
“We also sell clocks, but people do not buy a clock to tell the time. It is about so much more. It can be an elegant focal point of a room and offer something stable, something solid and reliable. We have companies that buy clocks from us and what gives gravitas and a feeling of longevity more than a clock? Of course, if you don’t care, then you can go to Next and buy a quartz thing.
“We are not a shop in the sense that we have to make money from everyone who comes in. Indeed, we give away much of our time and experience in advice that is freely given and in the six years that we have been here, we have built up a loyal customer base who recommend The Clockmaker to their friends, who come here to buy, or have a clock they want repaired, or a barometer – we sell and repair those, too. We also buy clocks and our prices, free of the auction room fees, are generous.”
For such a complicated and specialist task there is an incredible transparency to how Chris does business. The whole process, from the initial quote to explaining what he has done is clear and easy to understand.
Not unlike the skeleton clocks of the early 19th century that revealed the inner workings of clocks, Chris and his team inspire confidence and trust with their time-honoured approach to providing a real service to the customer.
The Clockmaker
Tel: (01488) 682277
Tel: 0800 587 0921
Web: www.theclockmaker.info
Web: www.clocks4sale.co.uk
