[pianotech] billing dilemma with pitch raises

[tnrwim at aol.com]

David

There are two ways of looking at this. One is by the job. A normal tuning is X. A pitch raise is Y. Put them together, X+Y=Z. regardless of how much time you spend. The customer doesn't know how long a "normal" tuning takes, so if she's agrees up front to pay you $Z, and if she's happy, and you're happy, then it's a done deal.   

The other way is the time you spend, which in your case, is about the same amount. Therefore, you shouldn't charge extra. But perhaps you're cheating yourself, and you actually do spend more than 90 minutes to do both. 

Personally, it takes me about 15 minutes to go through a piano once for a pitch raise, using my SAT IV. The follow up tuning then takes me the same as a "normal" tuning, which is why I charge a little extra to do both. 

Wim  





-----Original Message-----
From: David Nereson <da88ve at gmail.com>
To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Sat, Oct 30, 2010 7:34 pm
Subject: [pianotech] billing dilemma with pitch raises


    Most tunings take me an hour and a half.  And for that 
mount of time I charge $X.
   But often, after a pitch raise, which gets the piano pretty 
lose to being in tune, the final fine tuning only takes an 
our.
   Say the pitch raise took 1/2 hr, and the final tuning an 
our.  That's an hour an a half.  How do I now justify charging 
xtra for the pitch raise when a "plain vanilla" tuning also 
akes an hour and a half and I only charge $X for it?
  Or to look at it another way, if you charge $X per hour and 
ase your tuning fee on that, then go do a tuning and pitch 
aise that only takes 1 1/2 hrs., but you still charge extra for 
he pitch raise, then now you're charging more than $X per hour.
   --David Nereson, RPT 


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