Gosh, are some RPTs on the Islands only charging $75 for a tuning? I thought the cost of living in Hawaii was quite high. I'm in Tampa, Florida where prices are typical mid-west USA prices - I'm charging $95 for a tuning and I'm thinking that I might be at the cusp of the lower 50% percentile. Because of the economy I have been reluctant to make the big step to over $100. However, I do charge separately for pitch raises. Do you? I charge $45 for a pitch raise and I do a lot of them. I think my average service call to tune a piano last years was about $125. Shouldn't you be using something closer to southern California or Manhattan fees? What are the techs there charging - $150 for a basic tuning? Terry Farrell The other RPT's charge about $90. Other tuners are in the same range. One guy says he charges $65, but that's basically to walk in the door. The minute he gets there, he charges extra for just about everything. The symphony tuner gets $135 - $150, but only because he is the symphony tuner. He's good, but not that good. He's Japanese, and has been on the island for about 30 years and has all the "big" accounts. It's hard to get into his crowd. It's really strange on this island. Rent is two or three times more, basics like food and clothing are at least 20% - 30% higher, gas is 50% higher. But hourly wages, for the most part, and services, like tuning, hair cuts, plumbing, etc., are the same as in depressed areas of the country. Add to that that tourism, which is the driving force in our economy, is down 30%, which has put a lot of people out of work, and/or under employed, you can see why it's hard to make a living here. I've run specials and sales, with mixed results. My wife and I just discussed this again, and perhaps I'll just run a Easter, or Spring, special and offer 25% discount. Another suggestion she made is to ask people what they expect to pay for a tuning, and then do it, within reason, what ever they are willing to pay. As I said, I would rather tune 6 pianos at $75, than sit at home reading and writing e-mail messages. Wim -----Original Message----- From: Terry Farrell <mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Wed, Mar 10, 2010 1:08 pm Subject: Re: [pianotech] "premium" vs. price Hi Wim, Gosh, are some RPTs on the Islands only charging $75 for a tuning? I thought the cost of living in Hawaii was quite high. I'm in Tampa, Florida where prices are typical mid-west USA prices - I'm charging $95 for a tuning and I'm thinking that I might be at the cusp of the lower 50% percentile. Because of the economy I have been reluctant to make the big step to over $100. However, I do charge separately for pitch raises. Do you? I charge $45 for a pitch raise and I do a lot of them. I think my average service call to tune a piano last years was about $125. Shouldn't you be using something closer to southern California or Manhattan fees? What are the techs there charging - $150 for a basic tuning? Terry Farrell On Mar 10, 2010, at 3:53 PM, wimblees at aol.com wrote: Several of you have said, (Joe, specifically), that all service calls should be premium, in that we should do what needs to be done to make the piano play and sound as well as it can. I totally agree with that. But when a customers calls to ask what I charge for a "tuning", most of them don't understand the reason for me being one of the highest price piano tuners in the phone book. I give "premium" service, and most of my customers appreciate what I do for them. However, and this is where I have a dilemma, I'm not making any money giving "premium" service, when most of my customers only want a "tuning". I charge about $15 - $30 more for my tuning than most of the other piano tuners on Oahu. For my fee, I do spend a little extra to regulate, voice, clean, etc, not to mention rock solid unisons. But when a new customer calls, they don't know I will do that. All they know is I charge a lot more for my tuning than most of my competitors, including the 2 other RPT's. This week so far, I've gotten 6 phone calls asking for the price of a tuning, but have only scheduled 2 of them. The rest are price shopping. I'm getting to the point where I would rather tune 6 pianos at $75, than 2 at $115. I would still like to be able to make about $100 - $120 per service call, provided I spend the time with the piano. So I have though of quoting $55 for the first half hour and $25 per 15 minute intervals after that. I'll say that my basic tuning takes about 45 minutes to an hour, which will bring to total fee to about $80 - $100. But then, when I get there, I "sell" them on doing additional work. It's not what I'm used to doing, but as I said, I'm getting desperate. Do any of you charge by the time, with a minimum fee just to show up? Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT Piano Tuner/Technician 94-505 Kealakaa Str. Mililani, Oahu, HI 96789 808-349-2943 www.Bleespiano.com Author of: The Business of Piano Tuning available from Potter Press www.pianotuning.com = -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100310/673ec6cd/attachment.htm>
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