Boston Beans

Ron Nossaman nossaman@SOUTHWIND.NET
Sun, 1 Aug 1999 14:53:40 -0500 (CDT)


>
>Now ... does anybody have a way of sweet-talking the customers into letting
>the technician do precisely this in their homes on their brand-new pianos?
>
>Z! Reinhardt RPT
>Ann Arbor  MI
>diskladame@provide.net
>



The less-sweet talking of customers the better, in my opinion. The truth, or
at least the facts, work much better for me. I'd tell the customer that this
was Steinway's recommendation, and that they will pay for the work under
warranty, or not, whichever is the case, and let the customer draw their own
conclusions and make their own decisions. If the customer wants to know why
this happened in the first place, I don't know. The manufacturer's offer to
pick up the tab for the fix is, in my opinion, a show of good faith that
they are concerned about making it right for the customer. If you do the
procedure and it doesn't take care of the problem, that's when it begins to
get interesting. I think it's justified in this case because the fix is
corrective of *a* problem, whether it fixes *the* complaint or not, rather
than an attempt to disguise a bigger problem. If driving the pins a little
at Steinway's suggestion and expense takes care of it, everybody wins. If
not, then that wasn't it.

Most customers are amenable to this kind of thing because it's a straight
forward active attempt to make a positive fix and get on with it. Some,
however, are not and any sweet talking on your part tends to put you out on
a limb.

Anyway, that's my take.

 Ron N



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