BSHARPTUNE@AOL.COM wrote: > > Dear List: > I just came back from vacation and noticed the talk about piano tuning > charges. Ed Foote's comment about a repairman working on his fridge for 22 > minutes and charging 135.00 really rang a bell with me. Two similar > circumstances happened to me and is what prompted me to jump my tuning charge > from 75.00 to 95.00 per tuning... > > ...This really began to bother me. I concluded that these other repairmen were > either charging too much for what they did, or I too little for what I did. Mr. BSHARPTUNE, Yes, and yes. I think it's not so much a matter of what we're worth but of what the customer is willing to pay for a given service. If the refrigerator quits, there is more of an urgency to get it running again than if the same person's piano is out of tune. If the sewer line is blocked causing the toilets to overflow, the plumber has more justification for charging a high fee than I do fixing a piano with a stuck key. On the other hand, it's quite likely that you ARE charging too little for what you do. Most of us could raise our prices and discover that very little business would be lost and that our income would increase. One time, a customer called me up and complained about how much I had charged him. What I realized was that his was the only complaint I had received for years and I promptly raised my prices. Tom Cole
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