Aaargh!!...aka customer relations

[Clyde Hollinger]

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Dave,

I'm not sure what I'd do, but a likely beginning point would be to say
that before I come to the house again I need to talk to the teacher.
Then ask the teacher in which way did she felt the tuning was not done
right.  What comes next depends on how the conversation goes.

I don't have much faith in a piano teacher's assessment just because
s/he is a piano teacher.  Some of them really know pianos (especially if
they are also piano techs!), and others haven't a clue.  If you would
tell the teacher that you would like to meet with her at the piano so
she could show exactly what the problem is, you might find some fairly
fast backpedaling.  Then again, maybe not.

On another related subject, I am curious why you would not charge a new
customer for a pitch raise.  Not only is that unfair to yourself for the
amount of time you spent on the piano, but it also gives the customer no
incentive to take better care of his instrument.  I might do things this
way as an act of mercy if I feel so inclined, but in general the
customer pays for all the work I do.  If I spent two hours on a piano,
my charge would be about double the normal tuning charge.

I do not go back to customers who don't show a reasonable degree of
respect, but I rarely run into them anyway.

Regards,
Clyde Hollinger, RPT

Piannaman@aol.com wrote:

> Fellow self-employed types,
>
> Has this or something like it happened to you?  I had just gotten my 3
> year old to sleep last night and was about to nod off when my phone
> rang.  I glanced at the clock and it was almost 10:30.  I picked it
> up, and a man stated his name, and said that I'd been out to his house
> last week and tuned his piano.  I remembered him, and I remembered his
> demanding nature.
>
> He said that the teacher had been to his house and had played the
> piano.  She said that the bass was out of tune.  Now this doesn't
> surprise me a bit.  It was a pitch raise of gargantuan proportions and
> a tuning.  2 hours worth of work, and I didn't charge him for the
> pitch raise, because he was a new customer.  I did warn him that the
> next time he'd pay.  The piano is approximately 5 years old, and if
> had ever been tuned in his house I'd be surprised.  Normally when I
> pitch raise a piano, it's pretty stable, as long as it was stabilized
> at one point in it's life.  That was certainly not the case here.
>
> In my dazed state, I stated that I'd come out(today) and check it
> out.  He was extremely rude, and acted as if I'd done something
> wrong.  My first reaction was to make it better so that the
> customer--and his teacher, who'd recommended me--were no longer
> disgruntled.  I thought about it for awhile, and realized that I'd
> done nothing wrong, and had indeed given him far more than he paid
> for.  I called him back and left him a polite message to that effect
> on his work phone, which he should pick up today.  I pointed out that
> I'd do it for free this time, but that I wasn't the one who let the
> piano go untuned for so long.
>
> Any advice on possible responses to this sort of thing?
>
> This type of stuff really rankles me.  I guess the lesson here is to
> not take it too personally.  Kinda hard to do sometimes when you're
> the whole show.
>
> Thanks for reading.
>
> Dave Stahl
>

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