Psychology

[J Patrick Draine]

Kristinn Leifsson wrote:

> I don´t know whether I should tell you this...
>
>
> Well, I also feel that the customer needs to feel he´s paying for something.
> When I tune a piano that needs more than one tuning and I have to come back
> and finish the job, perhaps the day after, I sometimes leave the unisons in
> the middle with a little "whang, meow, or what you will" in them...
> DELIBERATELY...I´m so sorry.
> Please, I have no flame suit.
>
> Sometimes the rough tunings can get pretty good and I just want to be sure
> that the possibly tone deaf customer definitely hears a difference between
> the fine and the rough tuning.
>
> Am I evil? I don´t know!  Please help me.
>
> Kristinn the Cruel,
> Conqueror of Reykjavík, Iceland
>

Kristinn,
Are you thrilled if your auto mechanic gives you your car back, running rather
roughly, with smoke pouring out of the tail pipe, with a bill and the
admonishment that you'd better come back tomorrow if you want the engine tuned,
in addition to the new spark plugs and oil filter that they *did* install that
morning at 10 AM. Why didn't they do the rest of the work? Umm, they had other
cars waiting for them to "start" working on.
My Monday morning customer with a 20 year old Baldwin spinet that had *never*
been tuned got a 200 cent pitch raise (went over it 3 times), hammer flanges
tightened, lost motion adjusted & keys eased in less than 3 hours of my time.
Some folks would have stretched this out over several visits, at considerably
greater expense and inconvenience to the customer to achieve the same effect. I
rescheduled (called on my cell phone) the noon appointment to 1 PM. I'm happy, my
customers are happy.

Patrick