<HTML>List, I appreciate all of the thoughtful responses. Looks like most of us have been in this position for at least a portion of our professional lives.   Thanks again. Dave S. In a message dated 5/27/02 5:27:15 AM Pacific Daylight Time, dnereson@dimensional.com writes <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">----- Original Message ----- From: <A HREF="mailto:PNHISTIC1@AOL.COM">PNHISTIC1@AOL.COM</A> To: <A HREF="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">pianotech@ptg.org</A> Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 7:33 AM Subject: Dealer Prep/Lack Thereof List, I've been doing a fair amount of work for dealers lately, and I've been very frustrated by the lack of prep done on new pianos in the stores.   Most of them get tuned once before delivery, then one free tuning in the home.  Few get the recommended full-on prep/regulation .  It's usually enough to get them out the door, which is what a salesperson is SUPPOSED to do. Granted, the SF Bay Area is a very competitive market.  All the major brands, and many lesser known brands are available within easy driving distance.  School sales abound, close-out sales are rampant.  I understand that dealers must keep costs down to sell things at competitive prices.  And for the most part, customers want cheap first, quality second.  Shiny PSOs. The problem lies with the dealer avoiding the maintenance issue:  frequency of tuning(3-4 times a year for the first 2-3 years according to the manuals)  Regulation is seldom, if ever, mentioned in a sales pitch.  Repairs are often left for the customer to happen upon after delivery. I don't want to bite the hand that sometimes feeds me by calling the dealers liars, but I don't want the pianos and owners to get sub-par service because the dealer said "tune it once a year, whether it needs it or not."   By saying things like this, the dealer is cutting us out of the loop, and doing the piano and its owner a great disservice. I'm sure many of you have faced or still contend with this issue.  How do we, as techs, tell the customer that the piano needs more frequent and more thorough service without heaping the blame on dealers? Looking forward to a time I'm too busy with private tunings to work for stores....:) Dave Stahl    I see nothing has changed.  That's how it was when I worked for a dealer from '79 to '87, and a Yamaha dealer at that.  At least the Yamahas came from the factory in pretty good shape, the imports better than the American-assembled, of course, and most of them just needed regulation touch-up, tuning, and a little voicing.      One store manager told me, "Don't spend more than an hour on a piano."  (At that time I was getting $6/hr. for floor tunings, which usually included aligning several hammers to the strings, easing a few keys, perhaps shimming a keyslip, disassembling trapwork to lube squeaking nylon parts that weren't supposed to squeak, and driving out the long hinge pin of many a fallboard hinge to put a few gentle bends in it so it wouldn't buzz, etc. I usually spent more like one and a half hours on a piano.  Then there were the Lowreys, the Kincaids, the Kimballs, which took even more time to put in acceptable condition).      Fortunately, the customers buying new Yamahas got more "prep" in the form of screw-tightening, regulation touch-up, and another tuning, but it happened 6 months after they bought the piano (the service bond).      It was "make all the keys work, check the pedals, pitch raise, quick tuning, out the door".      After that, it was up to me to de-propagandize the customer from what the salesperson told him or her, and then try to re-educate them any way I could.  Yamaha also had an owner's manual which was quite good and recommended frequent tuning when new.  At least they had a maintenance and care manual.  Other manufacturers did not.      People have a hard time accepting the fact that something brand-new needs frequent service.  At least now the PTG brochures are more comprehensive, slick, and professional-looking than they were in the 70's and early 80's, and there is more literature available to use for educating customers, e.g., the Larry Fine book, and others.  When I went to do a new piano owner's first tuning in the home, it wasn't always easy telling them that the sales pitch was only partially true, and that some of it was outright b.s., but I just tried to tread lightly, kind of like when you have to tell kids there's no Santa Claus, at least not as the jolly old guy in the red suit.  Just use phrases like, "Well, that's only partially true ... it's recently been shown that blah blah."  or  "That's what a lot of people think, but to really keep your piano in top condition you'll want to blah blah ..."    You just have to do a lot of " 'splainin' " about strings stretching, soundboards settling, tuning pins settling in their holes, wood drying, humidity changes, "playing-in" the action, hammer felt getting packed down, etc. etc.      But if you're prompt and consistently do a good job and include a few freebies (tightening bench legs, adjusting pedals, whatever . . . ), they'll have you back and refer you to their friends, relatives, neighbors.  Don't alienate the dealer (biting the hand that feeds), since you are, after all, getting work, referrals, and experience from them.  In a way, you pay for the clientele you build up through them by doing reduced-rate tuning and service for a few years.  But then the time will come when you can move on, or charge them more for your increased knowledge and experience.    I'm not sure dealers will ever change -- they're trying to maximize their profit and minimize expenses.  Often the technician gets caught it the middle.  When the dealer questioned my spending too long on some problem, I'd reply with something like, "I can either fix it now at $6/hr, or later in the customer's home after they complain, at $25/ hr." (those were 1979 rates, and at the low end for the time).        --David Nereson, RPT, Denver      </BLOCKQUOTE> </BLOCKQUOTE> </HTML>