YAMAHA Service Bond Service

[John W. McKone]

>
>  I know of a case where a dealer had a _____ grand on the floor for over a
>year. It was demonstrated, played and broke in, and by the time he sold it
>was in severe need of regulating. He expected the technician to make it like
>new for one the price of a tuning. Turns out the technician did not know that
>the dealer made over $15,000 on the sale - until we were having a phone
>converstion. (Yes, there were costs, but after taking moving, service,
>delivery and sales commission into account, he made over $15K. This was an
>expensive grand.)

>Randy Potter, R.P.T.

Thanks Randy for Your excellent and informative post.

As someone who has worked both sides of the fence (as a dealer technician
for many years, and now as the head of the service department for the local
Yamaha dealer) I agree with all that you've said.

One small point though.  In the above quote it looks like dealers make out
like bandits on these expensive grand sales.  This is simply not the case.
Please do not forget that on top of all the service and delivery costs, we
must also pay for such things as offfice staff salaries, store space
rental, interest on floored pianos, and (if you happen to be a dealer that
is dedicated to education and public service) the cost of sponsoring
concerts, recitals, seminars, teacher outreach and so on.  Add to that all
the other typical business type costs we are all to familiar with, and that
$15,000 is pretty much gone.

Piano sales are not the cash cow they might have been in the past.  If I
can feel like we've sold a excellent piano at a reasonable price, paid the
bills, educated the customer, given something back to the community, and
(last but not least) given work at a competitive price to some technicians,
then, to me, that has been a profitable sale in every sense of the word.



John McKone, RPT
Operations Manager
Haugen's Pianos
Twin Cities