Yes, this pertains to CAUT. Universities are customers, too (although maybe not as many next year as last). And most of the situations I've seen where purchases were made, the university was left holding the bag when it comes to service, unless it's a manufacturer's problem, which the dealer doesn't have to deal with. The dealer sits pretty with the profit margin and the problem is taken care of between the university's tech and the manufacturer. (in most cases, you might not want the dealer's tech screwing the piano up even more) There is more to selling than price and profit margin. This is taught in every other market sector in business, whether you sell photocopiers, life insurance, or pharmaceuticals (and it is taught in business school, but not in the music department). In EVERY CASE, the manufacturer trains the sales staff how to sell the right product for the customer's needs, and in every case, that sale is followed up with manufacturer trained customer service. (that training is generally paid for by the dealer - been there, done that) If you lose on price to another seller which didn't match the solution to the need, the customer will QUICKLY figure that out, and go back to the seller which correctly matched the solution to their specific need. It costs more to buy the cheaper product if it is the wrong product. Trying to say that "you're naive about the piano business" doesn't cut it, when the piano business is pretty unique in dropping the ball on both sales training and manufacturer based customer service training. Yes. The piano business is different. Most often, you've got a customer who won't know any better unless you educate them. Preserving the future of the piano is just as much the responsibility of the dealer network as it is piano teachers and universities. In fact, we're seeing a LOT of collegiate music programs being cut completely out right now, so more and more of that responsibility is being shifted away from universities. My perspective is less about hiring skilled techs to do dealer service work and more that a trained technician would be better at matching the product to the customer's needs than hiring any Al Bundy to move product and generate revenue. Having a competent technician as the dealer would fix every problem that has been discussed. Not every technician would be a good fit as a dealer. In fact, most would not. But there are plenty of competent technicians out there with good business minds and appealing personalities who would make fantastic dealers if they would just take the plunge. Tanner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091125/5a18f55a/attachment.htm>
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