Teacher discounts

[Thomas C. Cobble]

>Recent experiences have caused me to rethink the matter of pricing for
>piano teachers. Part of my concern is something I read about
>manufacturers, dealers, teachers and technicians putting aside their
>personal agendas and sticking together for the good of the whole. This
>is due in part as a result of the continuing lack of support for public
>music education, and the resulting negative downstream effects on the
>piano industry (manufacturing/sales/education/service). Further, my
>informal survey indicates that piano teachers are second only to piano
>technicians in not keeping their rates current. In other words, and in
>my area, it becomes a hardship on teachers to have tuning/service done
>at the intervals they would *like* to observe.
>
>I've not provided discount considerations for piano teachers in a long
>time. Instead, I have elected to provide a little extra service for the
>same price as others pay, providing it is not too time or cost
>intensive. This approach on my part was originally developed for
>several reasons:
>
>- teachers who were not concerned with regular service;
>- teachers who did not significantly offset any discount
>  considerations with referrals or additional work;
>- a one-price policy was easier for me to track.
>
>However, I've recently encountered several piano teachers (in
>differing geographical locations) who are not only dedicated to the
>cause, they're deadly serious about all the peripheral matters of
>their work. If I fail to contact them about tuning, they're on the
>phone rattling my cage. They request more frequent tunings than
>before. They're more particular about smaller issues than before, such
>as voicing, regulation, and touch -- even on a per-note basis.
>Finally, this "attitude" carries over to their students' instruments.
>In spite of not providing discounts, I'm getting referrals like never
>before!
>
>Before someone says "leave well enough alone and be happy about it",
>I'm starting to feel that, considering the opening paragraph, I
>should do my part in promoting this (new to me) attitude.
>
>Discuss the above statements as much as you wish, but I'd like some
>responses to specific questions. Before anyone gets bent out of shape,
>I'm not asking for tuning or service prices, instead am curious about
>pricing policies. To keep the responses from going astray of the scope
>of the inquiry, I created the following list. (Sorry about the "test"
>approach).
>
>
>__ 1. Do you normally provide discounts for piano teachers?
>__ 2. If "yes", is it only because they are teachers - not
>      based on referrals?
>__ 3. Do you provide discounts proportional to number of referrals?
>__ 4. Do you normally provide discounts for multiple pianos?
>__ 5. What number of pianos qualifies as 'multiple' (2,5,10, etc.)?
>__ 6. Are discounts compounded for teachers with multiple pianos?
>        (teacher=discount, teacher w/2 pianos=bigger discount)
>__ 7. Are additional discounts provided for service frequency?
>__ 8. Are discounts based on [P]ercentage, or fixed [D]ollar amount?
>__ 9. [Discuss] Any variation on type of service, or other 'perks'
>      provided to teachers?
>__ 10.[Discuss] Other considerations I may have overlooked.
>
>I feel this matter is significant enough to deserve a moment in time
>on the list, but realize it would be useless bandwidth for some.
>Therefore, I invite you to submit your responses (and additional
>thoughts) to me privately. I'll compile(?) the overall results and
>post a summary to the list.
>
>Thanks!
>
>Jim Harvey, RPT
>
>Dear Jim. Yes I do offer a rather large discount to my teachers.. In return
for their refering me to their students I offer them a 50% dis. But I tune
them 4 times per year. That comes out to the same as 2 times at full price..
and their pianos are much easier to tune after 3 months......

Tom Cobble RPT