Marshall Susan took the words right out of my mouth. The one thing customers don't want is being told what to do. The other thing is being pestered. Even just calling them the first time to remind them to get their piano tuned is risking that they will be turned off. A while back my wife did some of my calling, and on several occasions the customer didn't even let her finish her "spiel", when they said, "we don't like phone solicitors". So calling them again, without asking them first if you can do that, borders on being a phone solicitor. You don't want that. My best results have always been post cards, followed by a phone call, asking if they received it. The post card breaks the ice, and it will be much easier to get an appointment. But again, if they say no, be gracious and say thank you, and go on. Don't take it personally. Wim -----Original Message----- From: Susan Kline <skline at peak.org> To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Wed, Aug 18, 2010 9:18 am Subject: Re: [pianotech] repeat business Hi, Marshall I remember what it was like when I first started, and I didn't have a family to support. Even just making rent was hard. It seemed to take nearly forever, getting that first business going. Your phone message implies that your old customers have already agreed to buy a six month tuning, when they haven't. People don't like being taken for granted or ordered around. They particularly won't want to hear from you over and over when they didn't want to answer the first message. In fact, if you pester them, they'll start to tell other people about it, which could lose you work instead of getting you more. "His tuning was okay, but we just couldn't get him to stop phoning over and over again. He held on like a leach." You don't want to go there! If even 5% answer and book another tuning, you're doing extremely well. I'm not sure that telemarketing is a good model for a piano business. With telemarketing, I imagine, you make thousands and thousands of calls, and then one bites, and that's success. But with piano tuning, you're dealing with a limited number of people, many of whom are part of a relatively small music community. They talk to each other. There are not thousands and thousands of people to annoy on the chance that one or two may buy. It's not that you shouldn't be persistent, it's that you should be persistent in a different way. "I'm calling to see if you're ready to have your piano tuned, since I last tuned it [x number] of months ago." And if you are talking directly to them, and they don't want it tuned, then you ASK them if you MAY call them six months later. If they seem reluctant, you back off. One good tuning after another, taking care of details like pedal squeaks, loose case parts, missing knobs and rubber buttons (with permission), and a light touch on the reminder phone should get them talking to each other about how they should call you, especially if you are on time and cheerful. If you feel like being persistent, then be persistent in dealing with hard piano repair problems. There are always some problems in a few pianos which are really hard to fix, but which make a difference. If you keep on and on with those, getting help from your colleagues if need be, that's a good kind of persistence, and you will be improving your skills and making your customers fond of you. If someone doesn't answer more than one call, NEVER go after them in a different medium like Facebook! That is what they will call HARRASSMENT. Just don't do it! There's another customer out there, you don't have to rope and hogtie each one. In fact, you can't. As to whether you call them at all, the first time, that's up to you. I did it a little bit, but never liked doing it, and I didn't get much return business from it. Fixing little problems in their pianos like nasty noises when other piano techs had failed did a lot more for my business than phoning. But different people do these things different ways. Best wishes, glad you like your work, it's such good work, and so useful. Susan Kline ------------------------- Hi Susan, Are you saying call or don't call? or are you saying use a different approach when we call? When I call I simply say I"m Marshall Gisondi. I'm calling to schedule your 6th month or yearly tuning please call me at ..." For some reason people don't return calls. I left a message a week for the past three weeks on one machine in particular. I have another customer with budget issues that I'm trying to assist in finding better pianos that don't require so much repair. I e-mail this person because they never check their voice mail, no return e-mail. I found her on face book and tried e-mailing her there. If persistance is what customers want I can give that to them :-) I've done telemarketing both for others and myself off and on for the past 25 years, so Im used to calling calling calling. However I struggle most with the rejection aspects. Even though folks on here tell me "it's not you." then I reply, it has to be something. "Economy" I'm told, but other techs. are busy, getting the churches. I must say however, I'm doing well in that I've only been back in my area for a year and was able to land another small school district, but it's work and I'm excited about starting them next month. My gripe is that I need less time between work, so that money can come in and bills and get paid. It's tough when you have a family as all of you know. I read that 70% of blind and vision impaired people are out of work. I went to school to change this percentage by obtaining a career that I love. I just need some kind of method to beat this economy or whatever else is causing the e-mails & calls not to be returned. As the advice was given, I'm trying to relax, and honestly I could use a vacation if I coudl afford one, I'd be down the Jersey shore right now soaking in some sun eating good food and salt water taffy walking the board walk with the wife and kids. I just need something to jump start this thing. Marshall -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100818/8cd03226/attachment-0001.htm>
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