Guarantees

[Wimblees@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 4/28/00 6:47:19 AM Central Daylight Time, 
cedel@supernet.com writes:

<< How much of our service should we guarantee?  For example, I give an 
extended
 guarantee on Dampp-Chaser systems; so far it has cost me nothing.  On the 
other
 hand I have written on the invoice "no guarantee" when the client wants me to
 tune a piano where the tuning pins are too loose to be sure they will hold 
the
 pitch.  I want to assure the client that I will take care of any error on my
 part without charge, but I also want to protect myself from having to do free
 work when the piano or humidity changes are at fault.
 
 Regards,
 Clyde Hollinger >>


A piano goes out of tune because of temperature and humidity changes. 
Everyone knows that. If a customer calls me a few weeks after I have tuned a 
piano, and there is definitely a note or two that is way off, I will fix the 
tuning for free. But if, after a week or two someone complains that the piano 
doesn't sound quite right, and we've had a lot of rain, or a big swing in 
temperature, I explain what has happened. In 22 years of piano service, I 
think I have had to retune about 3 or 4 pianos for free because I felt I 
didn't do a good job to begin with. Now maybe I have lost a bunch of 
customers who just didn't think I did a good enough job of tuning in the 
first place, or they were dissatisfied that the piano went out of tune a 
couple of weeks after I tuned it. But then I wouldn't want those customers 
anyway. 
The reason I think that, is because I have gotten customers who had other 
excellent tuners tune their piano, and the customer was dissatisfied with 
that tuner's work.  I

As far guaranteeing other work. On a rebuild I guarantee my work for 1 year. 
On all my used pianos I sell, I give the customer a 1 year guarantee. As far 
as any other repairs, I never have given it much thought. If I repair a 
piano, and the same problems is there later, (within a year), I will repair 
it free, because I fell I should have fixed it right in the first place. 

Willem