Shut my mouth

[Richard Brekne]

I am personally of the view that one should call a dead horse a dead horse.
Customers who dont want to hear this are customers I can ( and you can too...
grin) do without. That being said... there are ways of saying things and ways of
saying things.

First of all, its important to not either understate / nor overstate the
condition of the instrument. Second, its wise to start carefully.. to get a feel
for how the customer is going to take the bad news. If they are non receptive..
well you just find a tactfull way out of the situation and refer them to other
techs... hopefully they will sooner or later begin to understand. If they are
receptive well .... write out a death certificate if its called for.

By all means be honest, and dont hedge from attempting to impart as much
truthfull information as the customer is able to take on. Most, quite frankly,
are pretty reasonable about this kinda thing.. especially when you can factually
point out problems and deficiencies. Dont run away from this kinda thing.
Instead build up your "diplomatic" skills in this regard. In the long run you
will find this both profitable for yourself, and most helpfull to your
customers.

One thing to remember in all this. Sooner or later a customer is going to
realize that their piano is in deep trouble.. or outright dead... ... just what
do you think they are going to think of you if you were one of those who brushed
off informing them... took your 75 - 100 dollars for a tooning and left them to
figure it out on your own ??

Be honest... painfully so if need be.. grin.

pryan2 wrote:

> I had two customers today with newly acquired old, used pianos acquired in
> the last six months.  (One was a grand salvaged from a fire and painted
> white and thrown back together and the other a 45 year old "Naga" Wurlitzer
> spinet)  Both customers asked me what I thought of their piano.  When I
> started to tell them diplomatically  that the hammers were as hard as rocks,
> the strings were dead and rusty, the actions were loose and noisy, the
> tuning pins were either frozen or loose, they both stopped me and exbounded
> on the virtues of their pianos and how wonderful they would be for the kids
> to learn on etc.  I took their cue, shut up, nodded my head, collected my
> fee and left.
>
> Question:  How honest should we be when asked to evaluate an old piano?  I
> just feel that we are not doing them a service to agree with their misguided
> logic.  On the other hand, they really don't want to know the bad parts and
> I don't want to lose a customer.  Where is the middle road?
>
> Phil Ryan
> Miami Beach

--
Richard Brekne
Associate PTG, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway