Customer Relations -- The First Piano Part 2

[Zen Reinhardt]

Dear List:

Here are 2 more cents deviation on the topic of the first piano for the
little future pianist to practice on.

We've all had this happen.  A potential customer calls to ask you for your
opinion on "The Cheapest Piano Money Can Buy For My Child To Start Lessons
On."

"Great!  It's terrific that you're thinking of bringing a piano into your
family life."  You don't have to go on and on with the virtues of studying
piano because the customer has already made the decision to go ahead with
this, but by all means, be prepared to answer their questions.

If they are looking for the cheapest of the cheap "just to see whether or
not the kid is really interested," it's time to pull out the analogies in
terms of something they already understand.  Here in metro Detroit, the
sacred car is all-important to many families.  You might say something like
"now really, do you intend to try to teach your children to drive in a
rusted old hulk that can only do about 20 mph with limited steering
capabilities?  We all know that a car should at least be capable of
handling traffic conditions on the main drags in town ...."

Most customers know about the car-buying guides commonly available on the
market.  We know that such a guide exists in the piano market in the form
of Larry Fine's book.  "May I recommend that you read this book?  It gives
great descriptions on how to go about looking at a piano yourself from the
inside out so that you can evaluate its characteristics relative to your
expectations."

Questions are more important than lectures, pontifications, or other forms
of statement.  Asking the questions gets the customers thinking about just
what it is they are looking for and what they hope will happen in the
future.  Some of the questions I ask involve the future.  "How soon do you
plan to outgrow your first piano?"  Other questions ask the customer to put
themselves into the places of the children just starting lessons.  "Can you
imagine the frustration of trying to play a certain excercise only to have
the key behave differently every time you try it?"  Still other questions
aim at evaluating their own children.  "How prone is your child to "giving
up" when faced with mechanical frustration and failures?"  "How sensitive
is your child to perceiving the differences between the family piano and
the teacher's piano?"

Sensitivity to the differences is all too often overlooked by the parents. 
I still remember vividly as a child (8 or 9 years old) when for some reason
my dad decided to visit the Steinway dealer in Boston.  I couldn't resist
all those big beauties on the floor and just had to try them out.  Wow --
these sound like the pianos in the recordings my parents have.  Playing
them was such incredible good fun that it was hard to go back to the family
piano.  In another case with one of my customers, the child was allowed to
pick out the first family piano of her choice at a used piano sale.  She
picked a high-quality upright.  The parents were a little put out by the
price tag at first, but there was no doubt she had befriended that piano. 
I was asked to do the in-home service.  Then she really fell in love with
the piano.  If truth be known she's still as wild about her piano now 5
years later as she was when she first met it, if not more so.  The story
goes that whenever her teacher holds a recital, she insists that it be done
at her piano, not the teacher's.

OK, where's the bottom line to all of this?  Encouragement.  You're
delighted that the customer has decided to bring a piano into their lives. 
The challenge now is to maintain this encouragement through the purchasing
of an instrument with plenty of room for musical growth, the establishing
of regular service, all to provide the pianist with the encouragement
necessary to keep on practicing ... keep on growing ... ... ...

ZR!  RPT
Ann Arbor
diskladame@provide.net