Charging for Pitch Raises

[Clyde Hollinger]

Mike,

My current philosophy is that our charges should be closely related to the amount of time the job takes and the amount of expertise it takes to do it.  (Overhead, as well as supply and demand, comes in here somewhere also, and maybe other things I can think of now.)

So what you are considering, charging more for the sole purpose of convincing the client to schedule service oftener...  well, would you want to be on the receiving end of that philosophy?  ("Well, sir, the reason your oil change costs $60 this time and $30 last time is because you waited too long to have it done.")  So I disagree with you on this one.  There is more than one way to convince a client to have 6-month or annual tunings
than to hit the wallet.  Nearly all my clients fall into the regular-service category, and they do it because they either care about their pianos, or they want it to sound/work well all the time (or both).

However, good thought on bodily wear-and-tear.  I could schedule 25% more work every week and really rake in the bucks, but I don't want to find out where my physical limit is by being laid up to recuperate.

Regards, Clyde

Mike McCoy wrote:

> This is the only reply I have see so far that talks about the wear and tear on your body, and we need to account for that. I charge $90 for a tuning and $45 additional for each PR pass and I believe that is a GIFT. What I am considering doing is charging $90 for each pass. How can you convince a customer to tune twice or at least once a year for $90 ($450 over 5 years) when it only costs them $180 if they tune it once every 5 years?