[pianotech] Workload

[Chuck Behm]

>There are a lot of variations depending on what region of the US someone is
in. Chuck mentioned 855 customers. My database,  collected over 28 years,
has nearly 6,000 entries. That would include some contacts that were just
for estimates or appraisals. I would imagine more than half of them have
moved out of the area. We are a very transient society.

If one is in the mid-west where pianos are tuned four times a year, 500
clients would keep you quite busy. Here in the Pacific Northwest, most
clients are once a year, a few more often, and some can get away with once
every two years. Hence, I need a lot more customers to stay busy. In a city
the size of yours, there would be more than a dozen tuners. Dave Stocker<

Dave - My number of 855 is for current, active customers. 90% of those
customers are private individuals, with the rest being schools or churches.
When a customer moves, sells their piano, passes away, or just quits having
it tuned (as in "oh, the kids aren't taking lessons anymore, so we're just
going to let it go), those cards go in my "retired" box. I have no idea of
how many cards are in their, as I delete their names from the my data base
on the computer.

As far as tuning pianos 4 times a year, I don't have any customers that have
that done. I don't even tune my U-1 that often.  Probably 10 - 15% of my
customers have their pianos tuned twice a year, another 10 - 15% every other
year, and the rest yearly. I would not have enough tunings to keep me
employed as a full time tuner, unless I were to really scale back on
expenses. But then, being a full-time tuner is not what I wish to do,
either. I enjoy working in the shop to much to let that end of the business
go.

I 'm sure there are enough pianos out there to keep us all as busy as we
would want to be, if maintaining them were of sufficient importance to the
owners.  Chuck
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