Kevin, Jon, Wim, I expect my part of this to be pretty straightforward and unexciting. You know: Contract technical work on capabilities rather than price. Listen to what your tech tells you. If you don't believe what your tech tells you or don't like that he/she did, or the amount of the bill presented, ask questions - don't assume the tech is a crook, an enemy, or incompetent. Don't keep score on the little stuff. The tech sends you a lot of business whether you realize the source or not, as you should be referring business to the tech. Don't expect the tech to lie to the customer for you, unless of course, you WANT to employ a crook. If the dealer is honest with the customer, and the tech is honest with the customer, the customer will get the same story and treatment from both parties. It makes everyone look good, lends the illusion of legitimacy to both parties, and no one has to try to remember who told whom what. Though it's hard to keep straight depending on where you stand, dealers, techs, and customers are all people, possessed of virtues and warts, capable of either brilliance or stupidity on any given day an any random interval. Work with the average rather than the specific. If the dealer is selling a dog piano, he should expect to get the occasional negative report from customers and techs. If he's selling the "best" piano on the planet, he should expect to get the occasional negative report from customers and techs - just less often. Keep in mind that the techs very often need education as badly as the dealers. Sales brochures are nearly universally devoid of educational content, as are sales pitches and demos. An informed tech and/or customer is the dealers' enemy only if the dealer has nothing worthwhile to sell. Like I said, pretty low impact obvious stuff. I expect it will be more about politics than technicalities, so I don't expect to see any positive implementations in either the products or professional relationships any time real soon now. Sorry Jon and Wim. I'll see how it goes soon. Ron N
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC