[CAUT] Jeanie's brain storm - was Boston changed to dealers...

[Porritt, David]

No, not hat in hand.  If one sticks to dealers who want to know about problems and fix them this isn't a problem.  There are dealers that I have chosen not to work for.  If I were to go back to the customer after having reported a problem and the problem remains I'd say "Hmmm, this was supposed to be fixed."  Since most (but not all) warranties are 10 years or more, the piano would still be under warranty when I return to the customer.

If a dealer pays you for a service (free tuning, whatever) you are paid to work on his behalf so problems should be reported to him/her first.  You're there on his/her dime to make the dealership look good.  If that kind of work goes against your integrity you should refuse that type of work.  On the other hand this is generally a self-repairing problem.  If a dealer pays you to service a piano and you knock the piano making the dealership look bad the dealer will send someone else next time.  Problem solved.

dp

David M. Porritt, RPT
dporritt at smu.edu

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Jon Page
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 8:32 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Jeanie's brain storm - was Boston changed to dealers...

Nothing in life is truly simple but I've adopted a fairly simple approach to this problem.  If a dealer has sent me to a piano and is paying me to take care of a problem, I'll run any problems I find by the dealer first.

If the customer has called me and is paying me, then they deserve my candid report of any problems.  Your loyalty (not your integrity) belong to the person paying you.  OK, this oversimplifies it, but generally this is the route I've taken.

So you tell the dealer and they put it off because the customer did not notice.
Then what do you do?  Go back to the customer with your hat in hand?

--

Regards,

Jon Page
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