arms too long (or, how far is the car?)

[Kristinn Leifsson]

Hi Susan,
what about parking meters :)  And what does YMMV mean?
Your Mother May Visit ?
Young Maltese Moaning Vixen ?

Kristinn Leifsson,
Reykjavík, Iceland



At 08:30 30.8.2000 -0700, you wrote:
>At 09:27 PM 08/30/2000 +0930, you wrote:
>>I figure that if I need anything else I should charge extra and then it's 
>>another trip to the car.
>
>I think it may be time to look at this concept of charging extra for a 
>trip to the car.
>
>On the face of it, this looks like a question of how much to charge, but I 
>think that is only superficial. The question, IMHO, is how much leeway to 
>allow in one's basic tuning fee.
>
>One can _assume_ that almost all pianos will have little things which ask 
>to be done. I don't like leaving the holes where there should be knobs, or 
>squeaky pedals, or split key buttons, or missing keyslip screws. In fact, 
>I'm full of things I don't like: I don't like to nickel-and-dime 
>customers, and I don't like having to explain small fees for this and 
>that, and I don't like leaving little stuff wrong. I try to have enough 
>leeway in my basic tuning fee that it will cover the small incidentals 
>which almost always are there. That way I don't need to weigh the length 
>of my arms against the amount I charge, and the short walk to the car 
>doesn't need to start up some sort of meter ("ka-ching!"), like in a 
>taxicab. I don't need to make a big sell job for a "full-service" visit. 
>If it looks like the incidentals will swell to expand my time past an 
>arbitrary limit (which for me is about two hours, YMMV) I'll explain and 
>ask and quote, and all of that. In effect, I'm making all my visits, in a 
>modest way, "full service." I often take care of little stuff which 
>several other tuners have left. People seem to like it okay. I'm a few 
>bucks over some of the other nearby techs, but I seem to hold my own.
>
>My $0.02 cents-worth, but I won't quote it and ask for your approval first 
>before writing the post ... consider it's on spec ...
>
>Susan Kline
>
>