Repeat Business

[Wimblees@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 5/6/00 10:28:08 PM Central Daylight Time, 
staytuned@idirect.com writes:

<< How do you seek repeat business from your clients?
 
 By phone?
 By Mail?
 By Email?
 By booking a future appointment at the time you do service?
 None of the above?
  >>


I send a post card to remind my customers its time to get the piano tuned. 
The post cards are sent to customers for four years since their last tuning. 
I get about a 50% return on those. Here is how I figure that.

On the average, I send out about 150 post card. Half of those are for 
customers I tuned 6 months or 1 year ago. About 35 go to customers who were 
tuned 2 years ago, and the rest to the customers I tuned 3 and 4 years ago. 

I got the idea of sending post cards from Julie Berrie. When I first started 
tuning, I would cold call my customers. The typical response was, "I have to 
check with my teacher, or my daughter, or my wife, or the dog". I then either 
had to call back, or wait for them to call. This was very time consuming, and 
I did not get very many responses. Then one of the chapter members told me to 
send out a post card, reminding them it was time to get the piano tuned, but 
then follow up the post card with a pjhone call. This way, the teacher, the 
daughter, the wife, or the dog, could be asked before I called. This 
increased my appoitments. I di dthis for aobut 4 years. 

Then my wife and I attended one of Julie's classes on business building where 
she said that Ron sends out reminder cards asking the customer to call them. 
So I when we got home I did an experiment. For the next 6 months, one month I 
sent out reminder cards asking customers to call me, the next month telling 
them I would call them. At the end of six months I looked at my tuning 
income, and discovered there was no difference between the months I spent 2 
or 3 hours a week calling people, and the months I waited for them to call 
me. So since then, I send out a card asking customers to call me. I have the 
same number of cappointments, and I am saving 2 or 3 hours a week, time I ws 
able to spend with my family, or working on pianos. 

What I found was that the post card would be put on the refrigerator, for up 
to 6 months, before they would eventually call me. About 6 years ago, for 
about 4 years, I sent out a newsletter every month, in which I would say 
things about my self, advertise my used pianos, write articles about piano 
care, and promote the PTG bulletins. Not only did that take a lot of my time, 
but my tuning rate declined. And to make things worse, I never got a request 
for a PTG brochure, I only sold two or three pianos, and no one said anything 
when I wrote about our 25th wedding anniversary ceremony. 

When I sent out post cards again, the tunings increased. On one side of the 
post I have my services and sales information. On the other side, the side 
with the mailing label, I have "The Piano Manufactures Association recommends 
pianos be tuned twice a year. Above your name on the mailing label is the 
month and year I last tuned your piano. If it has been more than 6 months, to 
maintain your piano properly, and to retain it's value, it should be time to 
have it tuned again. Please call to schedule an appointment." 

Willem