----- Original Message ----- From: wimblees at aol.com What are needed are "factory trained technicians". <snip> Piano manufactures offer "factory" training, but they don't make it mandatory. Steinway, Yamaha, Kawai, offer it now. Kimball & Baldwin used to offer it. But it's voluntary. Dealers are not required to send their techs to those training session, although techs from dealers are giving preferential treatment. As far as dealers paying qualified technicians to work on their pianos. Most sales are to people who really do not know, understand, or recognize what a well regulated, good sounding, in tune piano is supposed to be like. From the dealers point of view, why should he go to the expense of paying a technicians to prep all of the pianos, when it would be financially more efficient if he waits until a customer asks for it. Wim Wow! Am I enjoying this thread! And yes, I am very happy to see Mark joining in as well! To quickly answer Wim's last question, the dealer is being ignorant, and not considering his future. In a lot of cases, piano teachers go into the homes where the pianos are. Piano teachers are probably the best source of referrals our industry has. Even if the piano teacher doesn't go into the home, there is a high likelihood that someone else will play the piano at some point. Pianos that are well prepped out of the box SHOULD command a higher resale price later, pushing up the value of future new piano sales. Second, a well-prepped piano should be sold for a price that pays the dealer back for the investment in the prep. It will pay off long term. There is plenty of profit margin built into new piano sales. Quit cutting margin to where you can't afford to provide dealer support. And you make more money. It's that simple. In the case of high-end instruments being sold at or near list price, there is no excuse. Last night, I raised pitch on a Kawai that hadn't been tuned since delivery several years ago. Her son-in-law, who didn't have a musical bone in his body, thought the piano sounded out of tune. In my opinion, that is a strong reflection that the dealer dropped the ball early in the game by not having an active, aggressive service department. Just met a future client who similarly hasn't had her Yamaha tuned in the 5 years since she bought it new and she has kids taking piano. The piano teacher introduced her to me. A few quick points: 1. I strongly disagree with Ed Sutton that customers are more educated. A very small number are. But despite the wonderful resources such as Larry Fine's Piano Book and the most recent changes to the format of his supplement, Wim is absolutely correct: most piano buyers are still woefully ignorant of what to look for in a piano - particularly those who are starting children in lessons. (Might be a good time for a new PTG brochure?) This is where the harvest is ripe for sales staff who are skilled at taking advantage of ignorance. These are the situations where I see that by allowing any "Al Bundy" to sell pianos, we are damaging the future of the piano industry. 2. I have been told that SMC will begin requiring Knabe dealers to send a technician to Gallatin for factory training. I do not recall whether SMC will pick up any of the tab. My preference would be for sales staff to understand WHY a piano in WHAT condition does for the piano student or advancing pianist. But at least that's more than a lot of dealers are being asked to do by their manufacturer. 3. To relate this to CAUT, when I go into a small college that has either a loan program or has upgraded their piano inventory, and I find small grand pianos in piano professor studios and piano major practice rooms that do not have a sostenuto pedal, that is a huge red flag to me that the dealer/salesman did not do a good job of providing the correct solution for the need. While servicing some of these new grand pianos in one such situation where they had bought new pianos, the piano professor stopped in to tell me that the "middle pedal was not working, could I fix it?" I pressed the middle pedal and demonstrated that the BASS SUSTAIN was working exactly as designed. She was greatly disappointed that her institution had been sold an instrument that did not meet her needs for instruction. And as best as I can tell, this particular manufacturer, which garners great respect from the technical community, but that I have long contended has been taking advantage of consumer ignorance for years, apparently does not currently offer a 5'3" (giveaway?) or smaller grand with sostenuto. At least I have not run across one. Same school, same dealer, the pianos were never tuned after delivery. Practice rooms are full of 4-5 year old studios that are now at least 50 cents low and don't sound as good as an old saloon piano. They haven't had the budget to tune them like they should. Someone apparently assumed that new pianos wouldn't need much service for a while. That's a dealer blunder. Gotta run. Getting an entry level console, which will get 4 free tunings the first year, ready for delivery. Jeff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091121/17612da4/attachment.htm>
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