On 1/28/2011 5:30 PM, Marshall Gisondi wrote: > Actually I'm not worried about my tuning skills as I've had good > reports there plus the school gave me an incredible foundation. Plus > Nick Kircher also started the ball rolling. Bill Bremmer said I was > well on my way. So I'm not worried there. I'm guessing that I don't > have a large enough customer base to off set the "it's not played too > much" crowd. Is that possible? It takes a lot of time, Marshall. A majority of customers will have a tuning, and then nothing more, or they may surface ten or more years later for another tuning. I remember someone once writing about a customer whom he had only tuned for three times in twenty-three years, but they were faithful ... that is, the three tunings were the only ones they had had, and they always came back to him. People always think that their tunings were more recent than they really are. I remember a customer who said that she had me tune her piano every year. I had tuned it twice in six years. It is a kind of "time dilation", really weird, but it seems universal. Don't lose heart, but I think pestering them for more regular service than they want will not give you results. You can offer call-backs after a certain interval, sometimes that works for some of them. "Shall I call back to remind you in six months?" that kind of thing. And if you call them back, and they say they are not ready yet, you ask, "Do you want another call six months from now?" and if they say no ... you say, "Sure, if you find you want a tuning, just give me a ring." and let it go. One thing you TRULY do not want is a reputation for being grabby and demanding. I heard of one tuner who offered a discount if the customer scheduled the next tuning while he was there doing the first one. Once again, some would, some wouldn't. I think he got a little more work out of it. If one does such a thing, one must carry through, remember the promised discount, carefully subtract it on the second visit, announcing it, etc. And make the same offer for the next time. Not many people will be that regular, but a few will. If you tune for piano teachers, and treat them very well, you may pick up some of their students. Never take offense. Times are hard. Tuning a piano is usually discretionary spending, and shoes for the kids and food on the table and the mortgage of course come first. Susan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110128/9ade6a51/attachment.htm>
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