SV: Home Alone

[Wimblees@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 12/14/00 4:04:24 AM Central Standard Time, 
pianola@online.no writes:

<< What about late appointments?
 
 I feel it difficult to find time for tuning when the costumer often comes 
late home from job and wants me to tune in the evening or on saturdays. 
 
 How do you handle that?
 
 Ola Andersson >>


I will wait 10 minutes for a customer to come home, unless it's the last 
appointment of the day, or I have extra time after the appointment. I then 
leave a message asking the customer to call to reschedule the appointment. I 
don't "punish" the customer for missing the appointment. I wrote a post about 
this several months ago. Even thought WE think the tuning appointment is 
vitally important, (after all, we make our living this way), the customer has 
other priorities, and I respect them for that. I only allow one missed 
appointment, however, If the customer stands me up a second, time it's 
curtains. 

I did have one customer call me and tell me she wouldn't use me again, 
because I didn't wait 20 minutes for her to get home. She realized she was 
running late, and made every effort to get there on time. She didn't 
understand that if I had waited more than 15 minutes, that the rest of my 
appointments would be late. And some customers don't like it when I'm 5 
minutes late to an appointment. 

I don't tune after 5 o'clock, unless it's an emergency. I do tune on 
Saturdays, because in so many families, both parents work, or it's a single 
parent home. 

Willem