Ryan, Glad I could be of service - regarding your rant. A key part of my post was - know your clients. You may have people who will and can afford to have pianos tuned 3 or 4 times a year. And, yes, my discerning clients, including performers, teachers, and performance venues have , and want, several tunings a year. However, the bulk of my in-home people would balk at tuning even twice a year. I know my clients. Congratulations to you for having the bulk of your clients in the discerning group. I am not there yet. I understand that you did not mean I'm nuts for my approach. Sincerely, Tom Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:19:47 -0700 From: tunerryan at gmail.com To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] repeat business Tom, No offence, but telling people to tune their piano once a year in my opinion is nuts! You really shoot yourself in the foot, at least in our climate (Pacific Northwest). When people ask how often they should tune their piano I let them know that to keep it really nice it will probably require at least 3 or 4 tunings or more. But I also let them know that we have a lot of clients who don't get it done that often - its a personal choice. I think tuners that see pianos once a year don't realize how bad they sound at the 6th month interval! When I started out I gave a discount to clients who had their pianos tuned in 6 months. I pretty quickly learned that I was making less money for MORE WORK! What's wrong with this picture?? If anything, give a discount for the once a year, if they schedule the same month. I've been amazed at how sour tunings can go with a seasonal change, and how they can magically heal themselves when things return to time of tuning conditions. I think we just need to be honest and give accurate information. Tunings sometimes last a long time, sometimes they are out in a week. It depends on the conditions. If you tell someone "the piano needs to be tuned once a year" and they notice it sounds like a tin can after 2 or 3 months, what are they going to think? Done ranting! Time for dinner...MMMM chicken enchiladas with homamade corn tortillas and fresh basil, pine nuts and garlic! Life is grand. -Ryan On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Tom Dickson <td_tuner at hotmail.com> wrote: Hi, All, I usually tell my customers that in-home tuning should be done at least once a year, around the same time as the last one. In regards to contacting customers, I see 3 kinds. Those that say, "Will you call me when it is time for retuning?" CHECK. Then there's the, "Thanks, that's interesting.." And the ensuing conversation about why the same time of year - yada, yada. Get to know them more before CHECK. And then there's the eyes-glaze-over people who get it done when ever they think it needs it and appear to be saying to themselves, "What a scam." DON'T check, With all the input to this topic, it seems that rather than having a blanket policy which may alienate some of your first time clients, it's better to take time to know them, advise them, and then - if they seem to be receptive - contact them for more business. Sincerely, Tom Dickson, Regina, SK, Can. > Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:29:51 -0700 > To: pianotech at ptg.org > From: skline at peak.org > Subject: Re: [pianotech] repeat business > > > >My best results have always been post cards, followed by a phone > >call, asking if they received it. The post card breaks the ice, and > >it will be much easier to get an appointment. But again, if they say > >no, be gracious and say thank you, and go on. Don't take it personally. > >Wim > > When I was just beginning, the first year or two, I put a tiny > classified ad in a local paper. It was a weekly in a tiny town, and I > bought their minimum ten word ad. Let's see if I can remember -- it > was thirty years ago, and time flies. "Good piano tuning, [price]. > Call Susan Kline at ...-...." -- something like that. The ad was dirt > cheap. I got quite a few tunings from that, eventually, because there > was something physical to remind people, but no demands to decide > right away, which would have been turned down. Several said that > they'd clipped out the ad and had it on their kitchen tables for six > months. A card would be that way, too. No demands to do something, > just a reminder, and there's an action in between buying the tuning > versus throwing away the card, in case they are hanging on the fence, > feeling like maybe they MIGHT want a tuning, or maybe not, or maybe > later, so they keep the card. Eventually all the stars and > constellations are in alignment, and then they call. Or not. Some of > those cards are probably cleared out when the heirs get the house > ready for an estate sale, 35 years later. > > Another little thing worked well for me, and it was just an accident. > When I got to the Corvallis area, I went and put a classified ad in > the Corvallis paper (a service directory, they had), like that first > newspaper ad when I was up in Canada. But in the Corvallis paper, the > minimum ad size was three lines. I wrote out my little spiel just > like before, took it to the window with the lady typsetting it into a > computer of sorts, and it came up short. I had just a little more > room. I thought a second, and then told her to add, "I love pianos." > And she took the bull by the horns, and put it in caps with > exclamation points. "I LOVE PIANOS!!" I thought that was sort of > silly, but didn't have the heart to tell her to tone it down. A lot > of people noticed those words and eventually called me because of > them. In a way it was kind of a bona fide, because any tuner who > really was tired of pianos and didn't want to fuss with their > problems wouldn't have dared to put "I love pianos" in the ad. > > And, "don't take it personally" is always good advice. > > Susan Kline > > > -- Ryan Sowers, RPT Puget Sound Chapter Olympia, WA www.pianova.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100819/e0876a01/attachment.htm>
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