I have never enjoyed tuning all that much. And I really do not enjoy tuning pianos that are out of regulation, badly voiced and generally just not working all that well. Starting in the mid- to late-1970s I decided to do something about this. I toyed with the idea of just turning down certain types of pianos but decided it wasn't really the type of piano I disliked, but the condition of the piano. I was servicing some small vertical pianos that I didn't mind all that much and other grand pianos I couldn't stand. My solution was begin doing nothing but what you are calling "Premium Concerto Tuning Service." At the time the "standard" fee for tuning in the area was $40 to $45. I had been charging $50 and I raised this to $75. I announced the change to my customers by letter in which I outlined my reasons and explained what they would be getting in return for the extra fee. I also had to explain the change over and over again when folks would call and ask, "How much do you charge to tune a piano?" As expected I lost a fair number of customers most of which I did not mind losing. At least I didn't miss their pianos. But over the next few months I found that my actual take-home pay (for field tunings) did not decrease as much as I thought it would. I scheduled fewer tunings per day which cut down on my driving time and expenses and after a couple of years I found that my take home pay was increasing and in the end I had not lost as many customers as I thought I would. Immediately I found my work was less stressful, the performance quality of the pianos I did service was going up and when I left the piano I felt a whole lot better about the whole job. I no longer had to sell things like pitch raises and relatively minor regulating and voicing services-I actually had time for nearly everything in the allotted time. I still do this type of work with the few outside tunings that I still do. And, were I ever forced to go back to full-time tuning I would do the same thing now. Aside from not losing income as a result of my change the other real surprise was the mix of pianos I ended up servicing. It didn't really change all that much. I still had a few spinets and consoles in there along with a few old uprights that were still in reasonable condition (and were now getting better) along with the usual mix of grands of various ilk. The only thing I could never figure out was why I hadn't done this years earlier. ddf Delwin D Fandrich Piano Design & Fabrication 620 South Tower Avenue Centralia, Washington 98531 USA del at fandrichpiano.com ddfandrich at gmail.com Phone 360.736.7563 From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Dean May Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 5:53 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: [pianotech] Premium service Kudos to David Anderson and others for encouraging us to provide our clients with a full service appointment, not just a tuning. It has taken me awhile, but at the first of the year I started offering a premium service appointment as an option to my tuning customers. I priced it at 1.5 times my normal tuning rate and I promote it in my email reminder and postcard reminder with the following verbiage: I am pleased to announce that I am now also offering Premium Concerto Tuning Service for only $XXX.XX This includes a normal tuning plus an extra level of service to help keep your instrument in peak playing condition. With it I spend extra time after a normal tuning doing whatever we deem to be the most pressing need. It could be minor voicing, minor regulation, repairs, cleaning, fixing squeaks, tightening benches, any number of other details that usually get overlooked during a normal tuning simply because there is not enough time. Every piano needs this level of service especially those experiencing a heavy level of play. No takers, but I kept putting it out there. People need to think about change. Well today I got not just one, but two premium service appointments. The extra money was nice of course, but even better was walking away with a sense of satisfaction knowing the piano was better taken care of. I am encouraged and exhort the rest of you to think about offering the same. Dean Dean W May (812) 235-5272 PianoRebuilders.com (888) DEAN-MAY Terre Haute IN 47802 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100309/781954d1/attachment-0001.htm>
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