Charging for Pitch Raises

[Mike McCoy]

Hi Clyde!

 I get your point but that's not a fitting analogy... it doesn't take the guy changing my oil any longer and doesn't cause neck, back and shoulder pain if I bring my car in every 10k instead of 3k for an oil change.... but I get your point of course. Do I use the extra charge as punishment? Well yes, sort of, for some customers it does work out as "punishment" (bad, customer! Bad bad bad!) but primarily I want to be paid what I feel I am worth and be compensated for my time and effort, it doesn't matter if a PR takes 15 or 45 minutes, it's work and I expect to be paid for it. I don't punish the person who unknowingly took in a free piano or a hand-me-down etc, but I don't PR for free either.
 In a nutshell, I think 98% of us Piano Tech's are undercharging for our skills, the other 2% are happy, working less hours and enjoying better health.  :-)

Mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Clyde Hollinger" <cedel@supernet.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 2:43 PM
Subject: Charging for Pitch Raises


> 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?
>