President's Message

[Avery Todd]

Thanks, Israel!

Avery

At 10:56 PM 9/11/05, you wrote:
>At 12:50 PM 9/11/2005, David Ilvedson wrote
>
>>But it was at your expense to drive back
>
>Drive back? I never drive "back". I  fit them in between other 
>appointments and tack them onto day ends on the way somewhere. Smart 
>scheduling can make the time and driving spent on callbacks negligible...
>
>>and futz with the piano and you
>>support the customer's belief that something wasn't quite right 
>>with your work.
>>Now you may have kept the customer by coming back but maybe not and 
>>is it worth it?
>
>We are in a service industry. While we may think that our product is 
>a properly tuned piano, in reality our product is customer 
>satisfaction. Like it or not, that's the nature of a service 
>business. Now, there are clients who can never be satisfied - and so 
>we need to learn how to recognize those and not waste our time on 
>them. As for the others, they are certainly worth the time and the 
>expense of the occasional callback. I see myself as representing the 
>PTG and the entire trade. I do not want to come off as the arrogant 
>"expert" who is not responsive to customer concerns.
>
>Yes, there were some callbacks that turned out to be a waste of my 
>time. There were others that paid for themselves many times over - 
>some directly, some indirectly. Some yielded steady customers and 
>referrals. Some were opportunities to educate piano owners about 
>their instruments - like the difference between tuning and voicing. 
>I'll never forget the lady who - as a result of a callback - was 
>convinced that her 85-note Young Chang was really a toy and got 
>herself a 7 foot Grotrian instead (and a nice fat dealer commission 
>for me). Then there are the people who, after a callback, offer to 
>pay for my time. And the occasional ones who cancel a callback 
>before I can get there because "it sounds OK now".
>
>So, sometimes these callbacks generate income - immediate or 
>deferred. And almost always they generate goodwill -
>which is a valuable commodity in our business, even if you cannot 
>translate it into dollars and cents. So is it worth an occasional 
>twenty minutes of my time and a buck's worth of gas? You bet...
>
>>It IS worth it if you are looking for work.
>
>You mean your clients never die, move away or go broke?
>
>Israel Stein
>
>
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