customer not always right

[Tom Cole]

Dave,

I try not to let a customer's ignorance eat into my free time, by doing
as much tuning and repair as I can by phone. Before I jump in the car to
fix a squeaky pedal, for example, I always ask what kind of shoes they
had on when they noticed the squeak. If the piano has suddenly "gone out
of tune", I always want to know more about what they mean. It's a big
flag that the person complaining is a novice player, but I've had even
experienced pianists become aware of something objectionable which,
before my visit, they were oblivious to. With cordless phones being so
ubiquitous these days, it's usually a simple matter for them to walk
over to the piano and play me what doesn't sound right. Often I can
identify and "fix" the problem in my office, saving myself a trip and
the awkwardness of whether or not I am to be paid.

Tom Cole

Dave Nereson wrote:
> 
> >She had been bugged all day that "her piano wasn't holding its tune" and
> all it was was an inexperienced player playing the wrong notes of an F
> chord. <
> 
> Yes, I had a beginning piano student customer who, after I was done tuning,
> remarked that the piano sounded beautiful.  Later that day, she called to
> leave a message that it had "gone out of tune already and nothing sounds
> right".  I drove 15 miles back to her house, only to end up showing her that
> middle C is immediately to the left of two, not three black keys.  She moved
> her hand down two whole steps and all was well.   Shoulda charged mileage,
> but just chalked it up as a good-will gesture to keep her as a customer.
>           --David Nereson, RPT, Denver