Wim; In my business class I address this problem with a section dealing with alliances. We should all have someone to work with in these types of situations, someone we can trade favors with when we get stuck like you did here. This must work 'both' ways and we need to make sure that we, in turn, go out of our way to accomodate a request for assistance from this person (s). It does not seem to make good business sense to work to build up our business over the years and let one symphony performance cause us to lose what is a very good source of income. Lets suppose that you have lost this church from your client list, how many new customers will you have to acquire in order to make up for this one church? Wim, in my opinion, it is always best to specifically suggest someone else to call when you cannot make the service call as requested. If the customer is a good one I will make every effort to accomodate them and in most cases will make the arrangements to have another tech do the service call for them. If you have a working arrangement with other techs in your area don't fail to use them as needed. If you, or others on the list, don't have such an arrangement I strongly urge you to establish one as soon as possible. The benefits from the combination is well worthwhile and might lead to more avenues of opportunity than you could dream alone. If you are a member of PTG use a chapter member in this networking. If you are not a member of PTG, find someone with whom you can work comfortably and feel good about recommending to do the emergency calls you can't get to; perhaps a member of the local PTG Chapter. Just my thoughts on your question Wim. Jim Bryant (FL)
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