Agreed. In the tuning business, the customer is rarely right. Allowing them to be right, as Gregor says, opens the door for more complaints not only from them but from the next technician that follows up after us. We all have whiny customers. Some we are never able to please no matter what. Pass them along to someone you hate. A while back, I had one that wore hearing aids in both ears. I was referred to him by another tuner in town that is a good technician. The tuner called me and said, "I told him if Jerry couldn't please you, nobody can." I went over there and tuned his Mason & Hamlin upright. During the visit, he complained about this and that about the other tuner. On and on he went. That was my first clue. A whiney customer looking for attention. I listened closely looking for certain signals and decided it wasn't the tuning he was bitching about, but voicing instead. I tuned it, voiced some of those notes he mentioned, then had him set down for 5 minutes and play. He was pleased as punch. Couldn't be happier! When we got in the car, I said to my son; "watch, before we get home he will be on my voice mail." Jr said, huh? He was happy. I know. But, I can tell, he's just that kind of guy. Loves it now but, he'lll think of something. Sure enough, as soon as we got home, he was on my voice mail saying that the tuning sounded horrible. It was all muddy. He couldn't listen to it, it sounded like an "echo" and all "blurred." I called him right back and said, "look, so and so is an excellent tuner. He couldn't make you happy. I intentionally had you set down and play the piano for 5 minutes. You loved it. NOW, you hate it? I'm going to tell you something you are not going to like to hear. It is NOT the piano. It is your hearing aids." Yeah, the last tuner told me the same thing. I wouldn't believe him either. I insisted. Continuing, "I can can come back to look at it but I know what kind of tuning I do and that piano is in tune whether you like to think it is or not. It IS your hearing aids or the way you are playing. The hearing aids are distorting the sound. If I come out to look at it again, I will be charging you no less than $80 just to show up because I know what the problem is." He accepted that. But, about a week later, he called back again telling me that he had talked with his brother in California who also wears hearing aids in both ears. "My brother told me that he could no longer listen to records since he started wearing his hearing aids because everything sounded muddy distorted with them so I guess you were right!" I said, "guess??? There is no guessing about it. I am right." He laughed and said, "I just couldn't believe it." I said, yes, no, you just 'wouldn't' believe it." He laughed again said, yeah, I know. I don't play those particular songs now and it sounds better. All in all, I learned many years ago, if we allow the customer to dictate to us where we are going to put an in tune piano out of tune and the next fellow comes up behind you and says man, this sounds horrible, you just lost a customer for sure. I tune a piano in case I have to follow up after myself as well as if someone else follows up after me. 100% of the time, if sometime is not right, it has never once, been my fault or the tuning. It is either a squeak, hearing aids, ceiling fans, sometimes, a major change in the weather (3 months later) or a piano setting over a heat or A/C duct. Other times it is one note louder than another, softer than the next, a pencil that was dropped in the action, always something else but tuning. So many customers go over the piano with a fine toothed comb expecting a tuning to be a "cure all" looking to find something that isn't quite right. From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Gregor _ Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 4:13 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Strange Customer Complaint oh, following customer´s instructions is always dangerous. In the end, you lose anyway. One problem is, that it takes hours and hours instead of your standard tuning time. And the result is wrong, of course. I know at least three types of complainers: those wearing hearing aids, those with "perfect" pitch and those who try to play chords in the lowest bass section. When you tune note by note how the customer says you will have a call back because the day will come that this customer will notice that an individual note does not sound right in another combination. I don´t discuss anymore. I advice to choose another tuner. Usually I recommend my worst and least liked competitor :-) Gregor _____ From: lauraread at earthlink.net To: kenneth.gerler at prodigy.net; pianotech at ptg.org Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:46:16 -0600 Subject: Re: [pianotech] Strange Customer Complaint I had a similar case recently with an old A.B. Chase grand. This customer also wanted to go through the individual notes and have me detune the unisons. Ouch! But then the customer is always right, or so they say . Laura Read From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ken & Pat Gerler Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 8:25 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Strange Customer Complaint It is like the customer I had with an Acrosonic. After tuning it and leaving an Acrosonic as in good of tune as it can have, I get a call that it doesn't sound right. Culmination after two trips was to set the unisons about 3 to 5 cents off of each other and she was as "happy as a lark". Ken Gerler ----- Original Message ----- From: Dean May To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 12:12 PM Subject: Re: [pianotech] Strange Customer Complaint Back when I was a mechanic in school days our best customers/most satisfied/easiest to please were the ones who either knew nothing about cars or those who knew a lot about them. Our worst customers were the ones who knew a little about cars. I just lost a nice church account that I had been tuning twice a year for the last 4-5 years. They had 2 pianos, a C3 and a P22. The music director was a retired school teacher that complained the P22 was badly out of tune right after I had tuned it (4-5 years of regular service with no complaints, now the piano is “badly out of tune”). I go check it, sounds good to me, I touch it up. Still a complaint. I go back out and completely retune the piano. Still “badly” out. I set up a special appointment to go back out when the complainer is there to have him demonstrate to me what is wrong with the piano. He starts playing individual notes (when they do that you know you are in trouble) going down from C4 chromatically until he gets around the break area ( I really don’t remember what the note was) and said, “hear that? That sounds awful.” Of course, it’s a P22 and it sounds bad at the break. I demonstrate to him that it is in tune. He has a hard time with the interval thing (he’s in his 60s and admits his hearing is going), so I just show him by octaves. I put my hammer on a pin and take it a little sharp and a little flat so he can hear the difference in the octave and when it comes in tune. I then show him on the TuneLab software how it is dead on. Then, as I am showing what happens when I bring it a little sharp, he is wanting me to leave select notes 5-8 cents sharp because the bass section in his choir is tending to sing flat!!!! As politely as I can I tell him that would be impossible for me to do and leave my name on the tuning. Of course since he is retired high school music teacher in the community the worship committee considers him to be god in all things related to music. So after three free service calls (25 miles one way) to prove that he has no idea what he is talking about (I point out that the C3 is actually out of tune by this time but no complaints on it) they decide they are going to use another tuner. And now I just lost another good account of the same denomination due to I’m sure his tarnishing of my reputation. It ain’t right but there’s not much you can do about it except shrug it off and keep doing quality work. A curse without a cause will not alight. Dean Dean May cell 812.239.3359 PianoRebuilders.com 812.235.5272 Terre Haute IN 47802 _____ From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Sowers Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 12:31 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Strange Customer Complaint Oh! I meant to mention that she was a teacher too! On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 9:31 AM, Ryan Sowers <tunerryan at gmail.com> wrote: Here's another one! I had a client of many years call me back once after I had worked on her new grand (she had a U-1 before that). She said I didn't get the action back in right. So, I went back as soon as I could. It turned out that she had noticed that there was more space between note 88 and the cheek then on note 1! She seemed skeptical at first when I explained to her that it needed that space for the shift pedal, but was finally convinced. On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 5:40 AM, Tom Driscoll <tomtuner at verizon.net> wrote: Subject: [pianotech] Strange Customer Complaint Had a music teacher ring today to complain about the tune done on the school piano yesterday. The complaint was, the top 1 & 1/2 octaves of the piano constantly sustain when the notes were played! After I explained that it was because there was no dampers on that part of the piano, he calmed down a bit. I'm guessing piano mightn't be his specialty instrument! Alastair. David Lawson's Pianos Wangaratta Australia David, How about the music teacher complaining that the middle pedal isn't working on her grand piano?She pushes it down and nothing happens! Tom Driscoll -- Ryan Sowers, RPT Puget Sound Chapter Olympia, WA www.pianova.net -- Ryan Sowers, RPT Puget Sound Chapter Olympia, WA www.pianova.net _____ Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out! <http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_allup_explore_012009> _____ avast! Antivirus <http://www.avast.com> : Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 090625-0, 06/25/2009 Tested on: 6/26/2009 8:29:03 AM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20090626/8365fd1c/attachment-0001.htm>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC