How do I handle a complaint?

Hi folks, you may wonder what happens when people complain about my knife sharpening.

SO DO I?

In three years it hasn't happened but I have a plan, and I think after the initial shock of getting a complaint, the way I deal with it should remedy the situation.

First of all, what can you expect when you get the knife back?

• I promise to make the knife as sharp as I possibly can and this often entails some repair work and then doing what I love to do so actually, sharpening it is often the easy part. In fact, I think that in most cases the knife you get back from me will be the sharpest knife you've ever seen. Unless of course you have experienced another sharpener that uses traditional methods, water stones, has a passion for the work and a deep respect for the knife. 
• The knife will be at the very least as sharp as it was when new but a lot of people just expect this and take that for granted. 
• All chips and nicks removed and the edge restored/sharpened.

If you get the knife back and it isn't as sharp for some reason as you thought it would be, you need to let me know that. I don't have a little black box that I put the knife into and it comes up screaming sharp. Everything is done by free hand so it is entirely possible that I could make a mistake but I do take time to test the edges before I consider the work done.

If you have serrated knife, it is sometimes not possible to get it back to the factory degree of sharpness, if the serrations are completely worn down then the life cycle of your knife is complete, toss it and get another one. (An inexpensive one remember), However if I can't sharpen it I wouldn't charge you anyway.

A customer calls/emails/texts me and says the knife for knives are not as sharp as I thought they would be.  

I will either refund the money asap and offer to re-sharpen it without question, so don't worry about that part. My goal is to make the knife sharp and make you happy so whatever it takes to get that done, I will get it done.

Now......what about some knives that come back sharp but the edge looks a little different than it was when new. This is possible and here is why:

Some knives like Shun for example have  an extremely small edge, there is almost no visible bevel and other knives need to be thinned. If I were to sharpen the cutting edge of your knife (Primary Edge) only, after a while that edge would be so thick the knife performance would be lacking severely.

So if the bevels appear a little wider, it means I have knocked a little of the shoulders of the secondary bevel, think of it as an upgrade, not a mistake. You need to have your knives thinned every now and then, it really improves the cutting performance of your knife.

Bottom Line is that you need to be absolutely satisfied with your knife when I give it back so please let me know if  you are not. I will take care of it. If for some reason I broke the knife, let's say it fell out of my hands onto the road and truck ran over it. I will replace it.  (the knife not the truck)

Most of the time people take their knives away and I never hear anything, I appreciate some feedback, this isn't something I do to feed my family it is something I do to feed my obsession with sharpening knives. 

Just let me know if you are not happy with my work and I will do whatever it takes to fix that. If you have a problem with my work, it's urgent and I will be all over it.

Peter

Yanagiba  - Traditional Japanese Knife.