Potential Customers

[David Andersen]

>A few of you have mentioned you don't charge for pitch raises because you 
>can do it within your normal tuning time.  IMHO, this is making the 
>customers problem yours and I know this is more wear and tear on my body, 
>going through it twice is harder work (if your younger, you might not 
>understand this).

I ALWAYS charge for anything other than a tuning; David I. is right; it's 
wear and tear on your body, and you should be rewarded richly for it.  We 
as a group----piano technicians---have consistently undervalued our 
massive skillsets, and are uniformly underpaid, IMO.

In late '98-early '99, I realized how good my work was compared to the 
level of most of my contemporaries in this town, and raised my prices 
across the board---in 3 years, my basic tuning fee has risen 50%; my 
hourly rate has risen 35%.  I have not experienced any significant loss 
of customers; in fact, the word of mouth has miraculously gotten better 
and better.  I think people intuitively know they get what they pay for.

I pretty much refuse to deal with price-shoppers and "bangers," people 
who are always trying to shave dollars.  It's too frustrating, and 9.8 
times out of 10, those people are not the stuff long-term respectful 
clients are made of.  I have clients I've worked with for 20+ years; I'm 
treated with extreme respect, offered water, coffee, food----treated like 
an honored guest in their homes.  And that's the way I  treat service 
people in my home.......the Golden Rule works.

Honor yourself, treat yourself like a king or queen.  You deserve it.

Best-----David Andersen