Piano Needs Tuned.

[Farrell]

"He only charges $45.00 so I am doing real good."

What is it about piano maintenance and client attitudes that don't thing
quality maintenance should cost as much as a refrigerator repair?

Don't get me wrong - 95% of my clients are GREAT - they pay my bill AND
thank me. About 4%+ are good - they pay their bill. But something less than
1% just don't seem to have a clue.

A couple years ago I pitch raised, tuned and replaced several bass strings
on a Young Chang studio at a gospel-type church. The guy tried the piano
when I was done and was real happy. They paid the bill. Then I did not hear
from them for two years. The called again and I serviced the piano a few
weeks ago. They indicated that they had some other guy work on it a number
of time - he charged $45 to "tune" - but it never worked like it did after I
had been there last time (at this point I was feeling right proud of
myself). So this time I pitch raise, tune, replace three bass strings,
replace several broken jack springs, repin several wippen flanges that had
pins falling out, reattached action bracket blocks to keybed (suckers were
just flopping around), minor fix to poor abused sustain pedal - and charged
them $247. I spent a solid six hours messing with their piano. The dude sits
down at the piano when I was done while I was packing my tools (nearly
emptied my trunk!) and making out the invoice. Dude says the piano had not
sounded that nice in two years and could not remember when the keys worked
so well. Dude sat down with invoice to write check. "Whoa, I had no idea it
would be that much - I can't write a check now, I'll have to pass this by
the church board and they will send a check next week. How could it be that
much? The other guy only charged $45!" I went through the bill with him item
by item, but he was still flabbergasted. It's been three weeks now & still
no check. I'll wait 30 days and send another bill with instructions to call
me to arrange a payment schedule.

What's with these folks?

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Fisher" <larryf@pacifier.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2001 11:08 AM
Subject: Re: Piano Needs Tuned.


> Yeah, well she wrote to me via my website asking about rates and who's in
> the area to do her piano and I returned her email with no suggestions and
> an indication of my rates.
>
> "doing real good" as compared to ..............  doing your own root
> canal??  searching your septic tank for a diamond ring??  tuning a fleet
of
> 15 Siberian spinets (unreadable decal/algebraic expressions)??  If that's
> doing real good, I'll settle for trying to find a date in Opal, Wyoming
> ............  ok, then Egbert, Wyoming  ..........  Lynch??   Farthing??
> Natrona??  Hingham, Wisconsin??  St. Paul, Arkansas??
>
> I didn't reply.
>
> Lar
>
>
> >Lar,
> >Thank you for your reply, however, I found someone from out here to tune
my
> >piano for me.  He only charges $45.00 so I am doing real good.  Thank
you.
>
>
>
>                                Larry Fisher RPT
>    specialist in players, retrofits, and other complicated stuff
>             Beau Dahnker pianos work best under water
>