Customer question

[Bill Ballard]

At 1:35 PM -0500 12/30/02, Sherry wrote:
>Obviously I have not been clear enough about
>what is "included" in a tuning call and what should be considered a new
>service call request.  I have a feeling this lady will have a lot of things
>go wrong with this piano since it was not maintained properly for many years
>and just keep calling pretty much forever asking me to stop by without
>charge for "little things" that are wrong.
>
>1) Any suggestions for this particular situation.

One idea is to do a "give-the-customer-the-benefit-of-the-doubt" 
service call. That's where you would fix the *one* sticking key at no 
charge, and do a thorough examination of the the piano's weakness, 
especially those which which would give her an excuse to call you 
back next week. Hopefully, *one* sticking key is all she knows about 
at this point after you've thoroughly sized up the piano (and her), 
you can tell her that currently the piano works as well if not better 
than when you first saw it. Tell her the truth about the piano, its 
age, the clear lack of regular service to the to, those things which 
are likely to need repair in the near future (more key easing, jack 
springs, loose action fasteners, etc.) Tell her that she can either 
take care of these things one at a time, one service call per repair, 
or she can allow you to deal with them sensibly, ie., spend a day of 
your time to fix what's broken or about to break. At this point her 
excuses to call you back have been eliminated, or if they still 
remain in the piano and ready to act up, you've explained to her 1.) 
that these repairs are what she has to look forward to, and 2.) how 
you'll accomplish them ($ and time) when the time comes.

>2) How can I delineate what is and what is not included in a regular tuning
>appointment (re:  repairs, etc)

I have a count-down timer on my watch which I set for 90 minutes 
(starting when my tool bag is open by the piano, and I grab the first 
case part. My Standard Tuning fee covers 90 minutes of work whether 
it's done tuning or on other small repairs. (Of course there are some 
very slow tuning pianos which will drag on through two to maybe three 
hours, say a piano with high pinblock torque and higher yet string 
friction.) If the tuning runs beyond 90 minutes so be it. The piano 
gets tuned for the standard tuning fee. But if things run smoothly 
I'll be done with the tuning in ~ 60 minutes. The rest of the time 
gets spent on small repairs and improvements. That said, it's 
difficult to ignore noisy pedals and sticking keys, even when the 90 
minutes has run out.

How about small to medium repairs which clearly won't fit into the 
time remaining after the tuning? These you can spot in the first two 
minutes, before you even start the tuning. Be prepared to estimate 
them on the spot, and that will keep them from somehow slipping into 
the description of what the piano owner gets for a standard tuning.

We could be better focused in our suggestions to you if we knew more 
about your experience and background.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"Can you check out this middle C?. It "whangs' - (or twangs?)
     Thanks so much, Ginger"
     ...........Service Request
+++++++++++++++++++++