My mistake.....my lesson....a cautionary tale

[Carl Teplitski]

Some years ago I was working at my bench when the phone rang.
I said hello, and the first thing I heard was , is this the piano tuner
?
I said yessss.  How much do you charge ? ? I told her what my basic
rate was, and she proceeded to grill me about my qualifications, did I
tune to concert pitch ,do I use an ETD, references, etc. etc. This right

after the price quiry. Now she wanted to know what was the soonest
I could come. , and do I tune on saturdays, or sundays ?  I became a
little
annoyed with her and decided maybe I didn't want to tune for her, but
she
lived very close to my place and nice not to have to travel 1/2 hr. or
so to a job.,
but I told her that she should make some calls in the yellow pages to
find
out what the rates were, etc. She thought that might be a good idea. We
hung up and I returned to what I was doing before this wonderful person
called
to make my day. For the next 10 or 15 mins. I thought about her gall and
decided
that if she called back I would tell her to drop dead. Of course I
wouldn't do that,
but makes me feel better just thinking I'd like to. Didn't think she
would have the
nerve to call back, but we know different , don't we.? Phone rings, and
I know it's her.
Well I'm right. Just the sound of her voice annoyed me and after she
asked me when
I could come to tune, I told her that I would be afraid to tune for her
, because I'm
sure whatever I did wouldn't be good enough, so please call someone
else. She was
flabergasted, and I just hung up the phone. This happened a long time
ago, but I still
feel good about myself and I know I saved myself a lot of grief. Not
sorry at all.
I also wonder how many techs. shes gone thru. Ones that wouldn't go back
and others
she wouldn't have back. I'm often easy to beat up, but not this time.

Carl / Winnipeg











paul kemp wrote:

> Hey, we deal with
> > people all the time, some
> > > people go through a lot of techs mostly because
> > they can't find anyone
> > > who can put up with them.
>
> Hello, Just a comment, if I feel that a customer or
> potential customer is going to be a pain I reserve the
> right to say I'm very busy, sorry (no). I can leave
> also and say this isn't for me and gently excuse
> myself.
>
> If a customer is calling and asks for a price and is
> price shopping and they'll spend more time calling
> around to save 10 dollars. I refer them to the yellow
> pages. The service has to be mutually beneficial, as I
> see it. Often if a customer is difficult on the phone,
> they'll be more of a pain later working in their home-
> why bother with them? Give it up to someone else who
> enjoys that sort of thing. There are plenty of really
> nice people who appreciate the service I offer and we
> both get something out of it. I'd rather work for
> them. Yours, Paul
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
> http://mailplus.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives