Referral Fees

[Farrell]

This post is related to Howard's recent post. Some techs like a lot of shop
work and some don't. Some tune almost exclusively. They obviously run into
many pianos that could use major regulation, action rebuilding, bridge
repairs, restringing, rebuilding, etc.

If a tech called me up and said that he/she had a customer with a piano that
needs bridge work, restringing and a new pinblock - let's just say $3,000
worth of work - it would seem appropriate to me to work out some type of
referral fee for this type of work. I get what I want (shop work), the other
tech gets a happy customer and a better piano to tune.

I would think a referral fee would entice those non-shop oriented techs into
pursuing these types of arrangements. Does anyone have any experience with
this type of thing. I just did a bridge repair for another tech and gave him
10% of the job fee. Any thoughts?

Terry Farrell
Piano Tuning & Service
Tampa, Florida
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com