Panerai has unveiled a new after-sales service called Pam.Guard, which offers an eight-year guarantee on all its watches. Pam.Guard offers an extension of the international limited warranty up to eight years on all wristwatches. Panerai is the fourth brand in the Richemont stable to offer an eight-year warranty after Jaeger-LeCoultre, Cartier and IWC.
The new programme goes live from Tuesday 26th November 2019, and applies not only to new watches. Any watch bought from a registered Panerai dealer up to two years before that date can be enrolled onto the care programme and offered the extended warranty, as well as further Pam.Guard services including personalised newsletters and immersive experiences via multiple mobile platforms that allow customers to deepen their knowledge of the brand.
Jean-Marc Pontroué was appointed Panerai CEO in April 2018 after almost two decades at Richemont, including stints at Montblanc, and most recently running Roger Dubuis for six years.
“When I joined Panerai, I was fascinated by the Laboratorio di Idee, because I have always loved this idea of pushing boundaries,” Mr Pontroué said. “For me, this does not just mean pushing technical boundaries with our watches, but also in terms of the experience that we offer our customers.”
He added: “The industry has a two-year guarantee as a benchmark, and I wanted to be one of the few companies pushing the boundaries. At Panerai, we are already highly confident about the quality of our movements, so it made sense for us to make this move. We already have some experience with long warranties, of course, having launched the Lab-ID a couple of years ago, which famously came with a 50-year guarantee.”
The Paneristi, the independent online group of Panerai fans, is always helpful in determining the direction of the brand. The group of Panerai die-hards is, according to Mr Pontroué, “like having 30,000 people in our marketing department” and helps Panerai to be “not only product-driven but also customer-focused.”
Mr Pontroué added: “We love to be pioneers at Richemont, but especially at Panerai where we test new ideas, but also listen to our customers, be they millennials, or customers who have been buying Panerai for many years. We want them to learn about the history of Panerai and the Italian military, but also to understand everything the brand is doing to keep at the cutting edge of watchmaking.”
