[pianotech] Raising rates in recession

[Gerald Groot]

We all use computers.  You write great articles, I read them all Chuck. But,
in my opinion, we must upgrade our skills into computer data base training
as well for our business.  Computers will never go away but, the card filing
system has, for most people.  Large companies never use the card file system
any longer.  They all use computers backing things up for safe keeping.   My
computer is set to back up everything on my computer daily to a separate
hard drive that is completely separate and has nothing to do with my main
computer just in case
  

 

I strongly recommend using a computer system.  It is not only faster, as you
can type it in and it's there NOW but, you can call the clients up by name,
date, location or what have you in the blink of an eye and close out of it
just as fast.  With Filemake, it is set to auto save.  When I exit out, it's
saved.  I do not have to remember to save it.  

 

My 2 ¢ worth.

 

Jer

 

 

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Chuck Behm
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 8:06 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Raising rates in recession

 

>Chuck

Sounds like you've got a great system worked out. Just a couple of things.
First, it might pay you to get a computer, and do all that card system stuff
that way. It might take you a few days to enter all the information, but
once you've got the hang of it, you'll be surprise how easy it is to keep
track of all your customers. Second, for your pre-scheduled appointments,
instead of calling a week in advance to remind them, I would suggest you
send them a post card. That way you can be assured that they get it. You
might still want to call them the night before, just to make sure they're
home, but I would hate to have you call and leave a message, only to
discover that they were gone on vacation, or that someone erased the
message. A post card will come back to you if they's moved, and it give the
customer a couple of days to call you to re-schedule. It's not fool proof,
but most of my customers like the post card.

And last is the Chuck Bucks. For about 6 months last year I sent a $10
coupon to each customer in a thank you letter. I sent out about 150 letters,
and got one coupon, and last week had a customer give me the coupon towards
her tuning. In other words, I spent a lot of money on printing coupons and
postage, and got one customer.

Any way, good luck with your pre-scheduling. It has worked great for me.

Wim<

Thanks for your comments, Wim. You're the one that gave me the idea of
pre-scheduling a year in advance in a post you submitted a long time ago. I
had just never gotten around to it until now, but I always had it in the
back of my mind to try.

As far as the computer, I've had all my customers on a computer data base
for years, organized by location. I just needed to reorganize my cards to
fit that system. I like having the cards, which I pull out and clip together
for each day's work. I know it's a redundant system, but that aspect of the
way I have done it works for me, so I have no plans to abandon the card
system.

I have thought about mailing postcards out, but will probably only do so
when I don't reach the person directly by phone. Most of my customers seem
to appreciate the personal call, so I'll continue with that.

I'll let you know how the "ChuckBucks" work as things progress. It's only
for adding in new customers, and only gives the old customer a discount if
they refer my name to someone who books an appointment. The jury's still
out. I'll know within a short time if I'm picking up new customers or not,
and will report back. I'll send you a sheet of "ChuckBucks" so you can see
for yourself what they look like. 

Again, thanks for the comments. Have a safe trip home from Vegas. Chuck

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