Thinking on repeat business. Dampp-Chaser used to have post cards you left with the customer, for them to schedule a tuning. How about a card saying something like, 'Where I have serviced your piano, I am now familiar with it and it's requirements. Use this card to schedule an appointment, letting me know times that are convenient to you. The card is prepaid, the message can be customized to say what you want. So you don't waste them, and the stamp, ask them if they would be interested in having one of the cards. Just an idea, that I haven't see mentioned. Sometimes the reason you are not called back, is that the customer wasn't satisfied with your work, and didn't want to hurt your feelings. I alway tell people that I want to be informed, if they feel that something isn't right. It is much better to have them tell you, so you can rectify it, than have them tell everyone else your work is no good, and not to get you. John Ross Windsor, Nova Scotia. On 2010-08-23, at 12:28 PM, Gerald Groot wrote: > Exactly Paul. > > Marshall, we sometimes get the same excuses. Patience Marshall, patience… While they may have expected your call they had no idea when it was coming in. How often haven't we received a call ourselves that just happened to be untimely? We were walking out the door? We had to return the call or ask them to call back later because we were busy or on another line? The same thing happens to them. > > I find too that many times when leaving messages, the wrong person gets the message. A kid, or maybe the spouse who could care less. The message then gets deleted and the real person involved never receives it. That same person then may assume that we never called in the first place sometimes then, calling someone else because of this. So it's important to be persistent to the point of at least trying our hardest to talk to the person in charge at least once or getting their personal cell phone number so that we can get a hold of them. While this is not always possible, I try my best to do this. > > I've had spouses that were very rude! I don't put up with to much as you know. If that happens then I will point out the fact that it was THEIR spouse that asked ME to call THEM and that is what I am doing. I am doing them a favor. The least they can do is to be polite to me, if they expect me to be polite back. That usually calms them down a bit. Although, I don't have to take that avenue very often. > > Jer > > From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of paul bruesch > Sent: Monday, August 23, 2010 9:29 AM > To: pianotech at ptg.org > Subject: Re: [pianotech] customers > > Marshall, > > Then ask "What time should I call you back?" If the spouse answers, I'll ask when s/he (piano person) will be home for me to call back. When I've left messages with spouses, it's been rare to get the call back, so I stay on the "offensive". > > When they decline a 6-month or 1-year tuning, I ask if it's OK for me to call back in 6 months or in another year. Nearly always they say "Sure." That's no guarantee that they'll schedule when I call back after the interval, but at least it indicates that they aren't put off by my calls. > > Paul Bruesch > Stillwater, MN > > On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 8:18 AM, Marshall Gisondi <pianotune05 at hotmail.com> wrote: > <snip> > Hi Jer, > I usually get excuses when I call, I'm in a meeting, or a voice mail. These folks knew that I'd be calling again. I'm tired of the excuses. I'm glad you guys out there are having better success at repeat tunings. > Marshall > > </snip> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100823/bce534ab/attachment.htm>
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