Hi Jay: There have been times when I didn't show up. This last week Mrs. Campbell called saying that it had been awhile since I last tuned her piano, but could I come this week. I said yes and placed her name on my appointment book. On the appointed day, I turned on the computer to pre-print my bill sheet and piano history. I went to an emergency recording studio tuning and called to let her know I would be 15 minutes late. When she answered, she said I did not have an appointment with her that day. Well, it turned out that the Mrs Campbell who had called me was an older customer that had been removed from my computer. My card records showed that I had last tuned for her in '91 (after 5 years, I purge inactive customers from the computer). All I could do was go home and wait for her call wondering if I had difficulty trying to get there. When she called (about 1/2 hour after the sceduled appointment) asking if I were coming, I had to explain my error. Normally, when someone calls who is a regular customer, I ask them if they still live in my little town (I restrict my service to the city limits, pop. 130,000) and if there phone number is still the same. This way I can get back to them if anything disturbs our schedule. I failed to do that in this case and it cost me some wasted time. Sometimes a customer has moved since the last service, so it is good to at least confirm the ph. number and address when you depend upon a computer database. I guess I'm still a slow learner. On some occasions I have arrived a day earlier than what the customer thought was our appointment day. Sometimes it was their mistake, sometimes it was mine. Sometimes we older technicians spread ourselves too thin. Pressure can build especially if we have promised delivery on a rebuild job and one other little thing crops up on the job that we just can't let go out like that. This may require rescheduling (not a good habitual practice). Jim Coleman, Sr.
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC