Irate Customer

[Ron Nossaman]

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>  It would seem to me that the appropriate response from me is to offer to 
> make an appointment to come and repair her loose rib and charge her a 
> normal fee for doing so. Her message has the distinct tone of "my piano 
> was fine before YOU touched it".
>
>Any thoughts before I step into the fire? Thanks.
>
>Terry Farrell

I'd do it like I would hope someone would do it for me if the situation 
were reversed.

"That shouldn't happen. Let's schedule a time when you can be there and we 
can give chase and find out what's going on."

Meanwhile, make sure you show up with fishing equipment - a soundboard 
steel, a wire configurable to a foreign object hook, an extendable magnet, 
and inspection mirror or six, pry-bar with scrap maple for pads, and all 
the light in the world. If you can produce an artifact from the area 
between the soundboard and plate, she will most likely recognize it as hers 
and apologetically pay the additional service call. Or, she might well 
wonder why it wasn't found and evicted during the course of the tuning, 
since you obviously noticed the buzz. It could go either way, so be 
prepared to just charge time on site, if necessary, even if it is less than 
your minimum service call. This would be your penalty for not finding it 
the first time.

It could, after all, prove to be a loose rib, but I doubt it. Nevertheless, 
have the necessary fix with you just in case, and again, charge what it 
takes to fix it. You can get the trip charge from this one, since you can 
make a reasonable case for not normally having the necessary means with you 
on a tuning call.

The key (sorry) here is including her in the diagnostic process so she will 
see that the noise is from a pre-existing condition (likely attributable to 
someone in the family), and not something you caused by inept, negligent, 
or intentionally destructive service. This should become apparent to her as 
you allow her to follow you through the discovery process.

Caveat: In these situations, what you find is what you get. If the object 
you fish from under the plate has "Farrell Income Producing Buzzer" stamped 
in gold on the underside, you're on your own.

Ron N

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