How would you handle..

[Susan Kline]

At 09:35 AM 8/2/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>a recently widowed of almost 70 years of marriage gentleman, who admits he's
>losing his hearing, and has now called me back for a 2nd return to """fix"""
>the top end of his 'ended it usefulness many years ago' Gulbransen Console
>Piano?
>
>I am a pretty tolerant person when it comes to showing sympathy in this kind
>of situation..however, my patience is wearing thin, and my lips are about to
>spew something that I might soon regret.
>
>Help me prevent that, please.
>
>-Phil Bondi (Fl.)
>tito@philbondi.com

Once in awhile, this happens to me. What I usually do, is to go and do 
whatever I can, while listening to the complaint, and talking about what 
can and can't be done -- and then, at the end
of the call, I explain that I will be glad to come back again if he/she 
wishes, but I'll have to charge for the next call. This is after two free 
call-backs.

If, on the other hand, I come back the second time (I always give them the 
first free) and I find something TOTALLY unrelated to the work done (for 
instance, they spilled coffee into the piano) then I show them what 
happened, and charge for a service call.

So far, it has worked okay.

Susan