Worth it? was Baldwin warrantee

[Avery Todd]

The Baldwin, Kawai, etc. dealer will only pay $15.00 for a "store" tuning. 
Is it any wonder
the decent techs won't work for him!!!!!!!!! I once told one of their techs 
that if NOBODY
would tune for him for that amount, maybe he'd pay decently. He's still 
tuning for $15.00!
Of course, his tunings go out the first time someone plays one of the 
pianos!!!!!

Avery

At 04:57 AM 04/16/03 -0400, you wrote:
>In a message dated 4/15/03 9:05:14 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
>tune4u@earthlink.net writes:
>
>
>>My point: I don't get much dealer work and almost no warranty repairs out 
>>here, but what little I've seen and stories I've heard suggest that 
>>neither is really worth much to my business.
>>
>>How does that notion fit in with the experience of others? How about you 
>>city-slickers? Is it better in a bigger new-piano market?
>
>
>Alan,
>
>Dealer "prep" is sorely lacking in the greater SF Bay Area, too.  I do a 
>fair amount of dealer work, and warranty work once in a while.  Having 
>only been self-employed for a little over a year, it will take awhile 
>until I don't have to do dealer work anymore.  When that time arrives, I 
>will celebrate.
>
>The thing that gets me is when certain dealers have a floor piano that is 
>20-30% flat/sharp.  "Just tune it," they might say, not understanding the 
>concept of a pitch raise no matter how many times I explain it or how many 
>copies of the PTG Technical Bulletin I give them.  Most of them seem to be 
>only concerned with getting the pianos out the door, and not with how the 
>pianos function once they are in the home.  And despite efforts by the 
>better techs to educate them, they  choose to remain ignorant.
>
>On the other side of the coin, the customers around here price shop to the 
>point where the dealers often make a very small profit on many new 
>instruments, which leaves few $ for floor prep.  The guy who does the free 
>follow-up in-home-tuning struggles with getting a very flat or sharp piano 
>to pitch and in tune.  And customers are told by the dealer that the piano 
>needs to be tuned "maybe once a year," so they don't understand why their 
>new 5,000 dollar upright goes out of tune 3 months after the tuner was 
>there.  The conflict lies in the tech trying to explain to the customer 
>that new pianos need frequent service without stepping on sales-peoples' 
>toes.
>
>Like I said, when the time comes that I don't need to work for dealers, I 
>will celebrate...
>
>I've done warranty work for Kawai, and they have been quite timely in 
>their reimbursements.  The customers that I've done the work for have been 
>impressed with how promptly the work has been done.  I've gotten many 
>recommendations from these customer to their friends, and gotten far more 
>work than the original warranty job out of them.
>
>Dave Stahl
>
>