When a customer calls for the first time to schedule a tuning appointment, do you tell them that you only accept customers who have their piano tuned at least twice a year, and have full service appointments once per year? Piano dealers are the customers of the manufacturers. This is especially true during slow economic times - the primary goal is to support the piano dealer, provide the best pianos possible at the best price possible, and give them the guidance and tools to represent the product in a quality manner. Dealers are chosen more for financial stability and proven sales performance over time than anything else. Bad dealers who sell cheap, don't prep or and give bad service generally do not stay in business very long, and this weeds them out naturally to some degree Although I don't it now, but back in St. Louis, my business had gotten to the point where I was able to pick my customers who were serious about their pianos, And I know of several technicians who operate the same way. So in a sense that statement is not apropos here. Regarding the next paragraph, with all due respect, Don, I believe that the above statement is part of the problem in the piano industry. First of all, the lack of properly prepping pianos did not just happen within the last year. This has been an on going problem for decades, during good times and bad time. Second, all pianos sold by manufactures need some or a lot of prepping. I am sure there are some dealers that are very diligent about making sure their pianos are prepped before they are sold, the truth of the matter is, as most technicians having been saying, there are way too many dealers who do not properly prep their pianos. They either don't know what a properly prepped piano is supposed to be, or they are not willing to pay to have the work done. Third, maybe the manufactures give the dealers the guidance and tools to present the product in a quality manner, again, most dealers either do not understand the guidance, or refuse to abide by them. And fourth, while I know dealers are chosen more for financial stability, what's wrong with also choosing dealers who can show that they are committed to provide the service the pianos need, before and after the sale? Why is that not part of the criteria for choosing a dealer? I don't thing a car dealer would even get a second look if that dealer couldn't show a fully operational service department. Don, I appreciate how you're trying to defend the manufactures side of this. But I am not the only one who sees that there is a basic lack of quality control between the time a piano leaves the factory, and the time it reaches the customer's house. That lack of quality control is not the responsibility of the private piano technicians asked to tune the piano after it's been delivered. That responsibility lies with the dealer and subsequently with the manufacturer. From my point of view, if the dealers doesn't provide that control, then the manufactures should strongly request it. Wim -----Original Message----- From: Don Mannino <DMannino at kawaius.com> To: caut at ptg.org Sent: Tue, Nov 24, 2009 6:48 am Subject: Re: [CAUT] Jeanie's brain storm - was Boston changed to dealers... Wim, I'm sorry but your idealistic statements do not reflect an understanding of how the piano business operates. Let me give you an example that may be close enough to home that you will understand the manufacturer / dealer relationship: When a customer calls for the first time to schedule a tuning appointment, do you tell them that you only accept customers who have their piano tuned at least twice a year, and have full service appointments once per year? Piano dealers are the customers of the manufacturers. This is especially true during slow economic times - the primary goal is to support the piano dealer, provide the best pianos possible at the best price possible, and give them the guidance and tools to represent the product in a quality manner. Dealers are chosen more for financial stability and proven sales performance over time than anything else. Bad dealers who sell cheap, don't prep or and give bad service generally do not stay in business very long, and this weeds them out naturally to some degree. Part of the relationship involves cajoling the dealer into using a quality technician, and prepping their pianos. But the idea that a manufacturer can go to a dealer and say "either hire an RPT and prep every piano, or you can't be our dealer any longer" is very naiive. Well, there is one manufacturer that might get away with this occasionally, but that's about it. As for training, when sales are low training also is forced to be cut back. All of this talk about factory seminars is wonderful - but this costs money, and takes a huge amount of time for staff members who are already overloaded with other work. When business is good enough to be able to afford a larger support staff, then more training is done. But training does not, in my direct experience, guaranty that any technician will actually do good work. That is why no piano company allows people to be called factory "Trained" or "Certified" or even "Authorized" except in very limited cases. Let me ask another question: Have you ever had a musician listen to a bell choir and say "gee, why don't they play the chords together?" Immediately, that person becomes correctly labeled in your mind as someone who has never played in a bell choir, as bell players know that even professional bell groups strike chords a little out of sinc here and there. The critical comment might have been borne of innocence, but to a bell director or player it was annoying. Your advice to the critic would be to not try to give advice to people until actually understanding what's involved. So, to every technician who wants to tell dealers or manufacturers how they should do business, rather than expecting others to make things better, take some small steps to build relationships through your own actions. Call manufacturers for guidance when needed. Get prior approval whenever possible from the manufacturer when warranty service is needed, or call (or e-mail) and explain, with complete information on the piano, before sending a bill when prior approval is not possible. When a new piano is delivered in sub-par condition, say nothing to the customer unless the customer is complaining, but speak face to face with the dealer and explain that you liked the piano, but you noticed a few issues. Ask the dealer: If the customer becomes bothered by these issues, would the dealer agree to have you spend an hour or so to correct them? There are ways to build relationships with dealers and manufacturers that makes you the good guy, so that they know you are someone who can help them resolve problems. But this starts with the attitude and personality of the technician. In my experience, the personal attitude of the local technicians has a greater influence on dealer relations with the techs, and dealer willingness to spend money on prep and service, than anything a manufacturer will do or say. The tech can't turn an idiot dealer into a genius, but with considerate comments, kind suggestions, and doing favors (such as a sample prep job done at a reduced rate) which lead the dealer to understand how much better the prepped pianos will sell, produces better results than anyone demanding anything. Don Mannino RPT -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of wimblees at aol.com Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 11:26 PM To: caut at ptg.org Subject: Re: [CAUT] Jeanie's brain storm - was Boston changed to dealers... One, is that manufactures should put together some sort of training program that can be taught at PTG sponsored seminars, where, over a period of time, technicians could take the courses necessary to become "factory trained". The second thing is that manufactures offer the title of "factory trained" automatically to all RPT's. I realize that just because someone has passed the RPT exams doesn't automatically make them as qualified as perhaps someone who has attended a Yamaha or Steinway training sessions, but someone who is an RPT has to be better than a rank beginner, as described before. But these training sessions won't do a bit of good unless the manufactures strongly encourage, if not demand, their dealers to use RPT's, or "factory trained" technicians to do the prep work. The emphases here is that it is the manufacturers who are responsible to make sure their instruments are properly prepped at the dealers. Without that requirement, it will never happen. Mark asked what should they do if a dealer doesn't hire qualified techs. That question should not even need to be asked, because one of the requirements to be a Yamaha, (or Steinway, or Samick,) dealer should be to have a qualified tech on staff, or at least available, if it is a smaller store that doesn't need a full time tech. Wim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091125/1a106419/attachment.htm>
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