Marshall It sounds like you're keeping very busy with the results from Croupon. Are you getting any other appointments that pay you your normal rate? You say you're booked into March and that you're doing up to 3 tunings a day. But are you leaving time to schedule your regular customers? Here is a thought. Why don't you only allow one or two Croupon appointments per day so that you can have time to tune your regular customers, and also allow you time to do the repairs that are coming in from the Croupons. Here is another suggestion. When a Coupon customer calls for an appointment, but they don't want to wait 3 months, tell them they can get it done sooner if they pay your regular price. Or doesn't Groupon allow that? Willem -----Original Message----- From: Marshall Gisondi <pianotune05 at hotmail.com> To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Tue, Dec 18, 2012 4:42 pm Subject: [pianotech] groupon Hi Tom William and everyone who responded, I apologize that it took me so long to respond. I didn't actually see the post at first about the groupon. I stumbled on it accidentally tonight. Sometimes when there are numerous posts or long threads and then a short post in between, I miss them. Groupun is like LIvingsocial. You offer your service at half rate to gain exposure and busines. The idea is volume and repeat sales. While at a drive in movie with my brothers family one May evening my sister in law asked if I've ever thought about trying groupon to get business. She said that she haas a friend who tried this with her cleaning service and received so many responses that she had to turn people away. So I thought I would give it a try. I launched my first campaign back in June and another one in October. Groupon does everything. So initially you make peanuts per tuning, but these are customers you would have never found without it, or possibly would have found by spending many hours months and dollars doing so on your own. The idea is repeat work and volume. So if you sell only 100 groupons you're earnings are small of course since Groupon gets half of the discouted rate and you get the other half, but this is only temporary. The idea is repeat work. Now between two campaings I've sold over 700 groupons. I'm booking into March now doing two to three tunigns a day depending on the pianos condition as Tom pointed out. My ad states "the fine print, limit one per person. May buy 1 additional as a gift. Valid only within 25 miles of 19038. Extra fee for pitch correction or repairs." I've also had it say, "pitch correction and/or repairs if needed extra" on the previous campaign. I've had people try some thngs with me such as trying to use two groupons, one at the first tuning and one for the second. I made this particular woman use it for the pitch raise and tuning. The second tuning will be a t regrular rate. Another lady tried to argue with me about the pitch raise needed. I simply told her" fine I'll just tune it then if that's what you want." So I tuned it a bit flat, not a half step, but she wasn't going to budge, and I wasn't about to lose m y temper which I can do if I'm provoked enough. I'm trying to be more like Christ in that area. She was really pushing my buttons that day. According to the groupon merchant center which is my account page where I can check earnings how many groupons sold etc. I have a 92% approval rate by customers As for mentioning things like suggesting they get a different piano etc. I have done that and I always ask them what condition the piano is in when I make the appointment. I'm also teaching my wife to do the same now that she's calling fo r me. pitch corrections pitch raises as we call them are hard to explain to th eaverage person. So I demonstrate it with the fork that we need to match the A with this pitch and set the piano to that pitch and then tune it. That seems to ease their mind and end the confusion. Now I know some on this list might frown at me about using a discount coupon for piano tuning, but over all I think it's going to boost m yclient base. I'll keep you guys posted as the repeats start coming in. It's sure giving me a lot of exposure to many different pianos, conditions, tuning experience with customers etc. I just need to keep up with all the calls I'm getting. All of sudden everyone and their mother wants their piano tuned and are upset if I can't do it last Wednesday even though it has been over 20 years since it was tuned lol. Thanks all, and I hope I explained this well. go to groupon.com and you can find other deals for different services, restaurants hotels etc. The response I received was much more than I anticipated. Marshall 215-510-9400 http://www.phillytuner.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121219/1a6a2cce/attachment.htm>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC