Aaargh!!...aka customer relations

[Piannaman@aol.com]

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Fellow self-employed types,

Has this or something like it happened to you?  I had just gotten my 3 year 
old to sleep last night and was about to nod off when my phone rang.  I glanced 
at the clock and it was almost 10:30.  I picked it up, and a man stated his 
name, and said that I'd been out to his house last week and tuned his piano.  I 
remembered him, and I remembered his demanding nature.

He said that the teacher had been to his house and had played the piano.  She 
said that the bass was out of tune.  Now this doesn't surprise me a bit.  It 
was a pitch raise of gargantuan proportions and a tuning.  2 hours worth of 
work, and I didn't charge him for the pitch raise, because he was a new 
customer.  I did warn him that the next time he'd pay.  The piano is approximately 5 
years old, and if had ever been tuned in his house I'd be surprised.  Normally 
when I pitch raise a piano, it's pretty stable, as long as it was stabilized 
at one point in it's life.  That was certainly not the case here.

In my dazed state, I stated that I'd come out(today) and check it out.  He 
was extremely rude, and acted as if I'd done something wrong.  My first reaction 
was to make it better so that the customer--and his teacher, who'd 
recommended me--were no longer disgruntled.  I thought about it for awhile, and realized 
that I'd done nothing wrong, and had indeed given him far more than he paid 
for.  I called him back and left him a polite message to that effect on his 
work phone, which he should pick up today.  I pointed out that I'd do it for free 
this time, but that I wasn't the one who let the piano go untuned for so long.

Any advice on possible responses to this sort of thing?

This type of stuff really rankles me.  I guess the lesson here is to not take 
it too personally.  Kinda hard to do sometimes when you're the whole show.

Thanks for reading.  

Dave Stahl



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