When clients die.

[Ken & Pat Gerler]

Carman,
I suppose it depends on your "comfort level" and how well you knew the 
customer, i.e. how long they had been a customer and how frequently they had 
their piano tuned.

The most unique situation I had was a time I was scheduled to tune a piano 
for the older sister (80 year old) of a customer (68 years old). The 
customer had purchased the piano for the sister. I arrived to tune the piano 
to find an ambulance at the house. The sister had died during the night, but 
I was asked to tune the piano anyway since I was there.

Ken Gerler
Gerler Piano & Organ Service
12425 Parkwood Lane
Florissant(Black Jack), MO  63033-4662
1-314-355-2339
kenneth.gerler at prodigy.net


Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 14:56:08 -0700
From: Carman Gentile <cgpiano at humboldt1.com>
Subject: When clients die.
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20060705144501.0117b6d0 at mail.humboldt1.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed


My colleagues,

    On rare occasions when I call a client to schedule a tuning I learn
from a family member that the client has passed away since the last
appointment.  Once the phone was answered by the daughter of the piano
owner who said her mother had just died two days earlier.  (I expressed my
condolences.)  Since then I've made a habit of reviewing the local
obituary, but it is impossible to always know if a piano client is recently
deceased.

   Is there an established protocol that RPT's follow when a client
dies?  Is it customary to send a card?  How do you minimize the obvious
awkwardness of the situation while on the phone?

Carman Gentile RPT
Redwood Chapter