After digesting all the information recently about basic and premium service, I have come up with a new way to answer the phone calls I get asking how much I charge. As I might have indicated before, my "basic" tuning fee is one of the highest on the island. But what most customers don't understand is that I do more for my basic tuning than most piano tuner offer for their tuning fee. But because all they hear is that high fee, they call other tuners who charge much less. Well, today, I came up with a brilliant idea. From now on, when a customer calls asking for my tuning fee, I will tell them that my "basic" tuning fee will be $%%%. (I won't mention the actual price, because of ant- trust laws, which I don't completely agree with. But that's another story), which is competitive with the other tuners. For that fee, I will give a one pass tuning with an electronic tuner, but nothing else. All repairs, regulations, parts, etc, will be extra. Then I will tell them that I also offer a "full service" tuning, for $&&&& , which is $40 higher, but will include minor pitch adjustments, minor repairs, minor regulation, some cleaning, and a Rust Blocker shield, valued at $22. In a sense, I will get paid the same for what I have been charging all along, but by offering the "basic" fee first, it will get my foot in the door. Other tuner also charge more once they get in the door, but they don't disclose that when they set up the appointment. Even if I wind up only doing a basic tuning, and collect that lower fee, as I said in an earlier post, I would rather tune 6 pianos at lower fee, than 2 pianos at a higher fee. I think this is basically what the other tuner offered, but he called it "premium", and was offering it to his existing customers. I also offer additional service, but I'm trying to get new customers. Because of our current economic environment, and because I don't have the luxury of relying on my 30 or 40 years of reputation in the same town, I have to do all I can to gain customers. Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT Piano Tuner/Technician 94-505 Kealakaa Str. Mililani, Oahu, HI 96789 808-349-2943 www.Bleespiano.com Author of: The Business of Piano Tuning available from Potter Press www.pianotuning.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100312/c894bf0e/attachment.htm>
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