Steinways / David Andersen

[RicB]

These are IMB very well reflected thoughts.  Nice stuff David.

Cheers
RicB


    The dealers do provide customer satisfaction surveys.  The overall
    impression of those can be misleading, however, because they are
    given to
    people who felt good enough about the instrument to buy it in the first
    place.  The more useful information in terms of quality control
    might come
    from those who opted not to buy a Steinway.  If they could survey those
    people they might find the myriad of problems listed that we are talking
    about, but that, of course, is harder information to come by.  Steinway
    might be well served by an online survey for technicians who work on
    their
    instruments where reports of problems can go directly to quality
    control--it
    could even be anonymous.  Whether they are interested in that, I
    don't know,
    but information never hurts in my view.  

    As a technician there is also the problem that if the customer is
    thrilled
    with the piano should I take it upon myself to destroy the
    experience of the
    customer's very expensive purchase by pointing out every little
    thing that I
    consider to be a problem even if the customer is not complaining
    about it?
    And, if so, which ones should that be and which ones should I let
    go?  While
    it may be that some technicians who work for the dealers don't pick
    up on
    these problems, for many of them, it may be their bread and butter
    and most,
    I would guess, are not willing to put their positions with the dealer at
    risk in order for the opportunity to ride in on a white horse and be the
    hero.  Quite honestly, in such cases, the benefits do not outweigh the
    risks.