Ethics again

[David Chadwick]

Tom,
I have dealt with this situation many times. The local dealer will have a 
sale where the piano's are selling as fast as they are uncrated, especially 
the median priced/quality brands. The dealer explains the unprepped 
situation to the customer and a coupon for the work is issued. I 
approximately spend about 3 to 4 hours in the home on the glaring issues 
first followed with fine adjustments to touch and tone. The dealer pays me 
slightly more for the in-home service as compared with my dealer floor cost 
and the clients are overjoyed to see the work performed in their living 
rooms. Occasionally I have the problems where repinning is required on more 
than just a few flanges in which case I will inform the owner that the 
factory has to authorize the time so I can get paid. When asked by the owner 
why I will give a straight answer and that might relate to environmental 
changes have played a part or that the close tolerances and maybe lack of 
Q/C might be the cause. I notify the dealer of this and usually can get 
factory compliance without any problem as long as my cost to them is within 
their budget. If the piano has a cracked soundboard such as in the Samick 
Kohler & Campbell's had in a production series I will show the customer the 
problem, contact the dealer to the manufacturing defect so they can handle 
the situation. It's not rocket science! (my apologizes to the rocket 
scientists) I'm professional about my performance yet aware that I'm also an 
ambassador for the dealer which keeps me in business. On Steinways and other 
high end instruments there is never a "just tune it" service call post 
delivery and I have an agreement with the dealer that these customers 
require a higher level of attention if concerns are voiced by the client or 
myself.

If it was me with the loose tuning pin problem I would handle it 
similarly...... express my concern to the client, notify the dealer of the 
situation, do a follow-up appointment to measure the pin torque so I can 
give the manufacture hard numbers to swallow and wait for the responsible 
parties to authorize my services. Both the dealer and manufacturer want to 
keep the piano in the home and will usually go the extra to do so.

Thanks for letting me ramble
David C


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <justpianos at our.net.au>
To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2006 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: Ethics again


>I don't believe this is a responsible excuse.
> Does this mean that anybody having a "sale" is exempt from pre-delivery
> service. No. They knew a sale would attract business, and the sale price
> should not have excluded the non-sale service which everybody expects.
> No excuse.
> Bruce Browning - The Piano Tuner.
>
>
>
>
>> As I mentioned in one of my later posts, this was an unusual situation.
>> They were closing one branch of the store before opening the new one. 
>> The
>> sale made it sound like they were liquidating all their stock at
>> incredible one-time prices.  (I don't know exactly how cheap any of these
>> pianos actually were, but the impression was that the store was closing
>> and this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy a piano.)  It 
>> worked.
>>
>>   They sold all the pianos at the store, and started ordering more.  They
>> would come in and go out the same day.  Uncrate them and load them on a
>> truck.  Even getting that done was difficult.  As I said, I got about 40
>> tunings out of this sale and I'm only one of maybe a dozen tuners who
>> slogged their way through all these new pianos.
>>
>>   During this sale, which lasted about a month, I remember being called 
>> in
>> one day to the warehouse, where I tuned 6 pianos in one day.  I came
>> back the next day and they were all gone and there were new ones in
>> their place.  I tuned 6 that next day, too.  There wasn't much time for
>> any real prepping.
>>
>>   This is not how they usually do business. I've prepped many pianos
>> there, and there's no time limit, just get it done right.  They have a
>> checklist and you have to sign the card and indicate exactly what was
>> done on each piano and what, if anything else, needed to be done.
>>   I don't want to give the impression that this situation developed from 
>> a
>> shoddy business attitude.  It was as if a flood had come and all you
>> could do was hang on and keep your head above water.
>>
>>   Tom Sivak