Terry, I guess every advice to your case has been written. I would like to say something general concerning teachers and appointments: I never give any discounts, but for piano teachers I tune for free. I give them a little bit of my time and am hoping that they recommend my service to their students. I make appointments at a certain time, but tell the customer that this time is a rough estimate, plus/minus 30 to 45 minutes. That sounds better than saying between 10:00 and 11:30. Gregor ------------------------------------------ piano technician - tuner - dealer Münster, Germany www.weldert.de > From: mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com > To: pianotech at ptg.org > Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 10:28:07 -0400 > Subject: [pianotech] 2nd Bad Client in 10+ Years - Seeking Advice > > I'll try to make this as short and clear as I can. A piano teacher > calls me asking $$ for tuning. I tell her my standard fee. She asks if > I give discounts if she can get some of her students pianos for > tunings. I said I don't discount. She asks again. Business is a bit > slow due to economy. I said that I do discount $10 off a tuning for > churches or other organizations with multiple pianos where I can > submit one invoice. She asks if I can do that for her and her > students. I want more work, so I relent (yeah, yeah, you know where > this post is going, don't you?)...... Okay, standard $$ less $10 for > you and your students - if we can get them to schedule on the same > day, etc. so it works well for me. Agreement reached. > > First of all, it took me three visits to tune her Yamaha upright (nice > piano). First visit I raised the pitch about 15 cents (she did move > the piano from out of state, and was somewhat flabbergasted that it > was off pitch because she has it tuned every year). While raising the > pitch, about 15 little children showed up along with about 5 young > mothers - kids screaming, TV blaring, moms chattering - you get the > picture. I told her I could not tune her piano with all the noise - > let's reschedule. She agreed and apologized for the noise - the new > appt. would be noise-free she said - we set it for a few days away at > 4 PM - I told her it would take me an hour to tune her piano. I was > over on the far side of town that afternoon on appointments and ended > arriving at problem piano teacher (PPT) at 4:30 PM. She let's me in > the door and asks why I wasn't there at 4. I told her my schedule and > work got me here at 4:30 (with an apology). She said she had a date > with her husband at 6 and needed to start getting ready at 5. I said > okay. She said she was uncomfortable with me in the home after 5. I > said "okay, I understand, I apologize for the confusion, let's > reschedule - is tomorrow at X okay?" She said that would be good. Show > up for the third time (Saturday afternoon - she had a recital that > evening and I wanted to be sure to have her piano tuned for it), give > the nice Yamy a darn good tuning. She wrote me a check for PR + Tune > less $10. > > Before I left, she asked me if I could fix her player unit (disclavier > (sp?)) - turned out it worked okay, but after she played a bunch of > pieces, I asked her if that was a quiet at the unit would play (the > best it could do was approaching forte!). She said yes, that was as > quiet as it would play - and then added that level was as quiet as SHE > could play the piano. I said something like "I'm sure you can play > quieter", she said no. I opened the piano lid and looked at let-off. > Most hammers were letting off at 1/4" to 3/8". I explained about > action regulation and how excessive let-off would make it difficult to > play quietly. She said she understood and that my explanation made > sense. I told her if she ever wanted to improve the performance of her > piano, we could schedule an action regulation. She said she would > think about it. Great. > > So the next day I tune the piano of one of her students. This was the > Funky-Case 1959 Wurly console I posted about yesterday. This piano had > seen A LOT of HARD playing - like it had been in a southern Baptist > church for many years. The entire middle section of keys were low (key- > leveling low), for whatever reason, let-off was about a micron away > from the strings (those notes that went through let-off), excessive > lost motion, and needless to say, the entire mid-section of the action > had bobbling hammers. You could get most of them to strike the string > once if you really whacked the key, but most of them would bobble on a > medium blow. All hammers were deeply grooved. Several hammers were > flat because their center pins had walked out and they moved > erratically (wildly). Another 8 or 10 were very loose and you could > see the pins had walked. Another dozen or so felt okay, but you could > see the pins walking. An old stick & wire repair on a hammer shank > fell off while I was testing things. > > I discussed the piano ailments with the owners. The player was a young > child playing only a few months. I recommended three levels piano > improvement: 1) replace piano now; 2) do minimal regulation and repair > to make the piano functional and reasonable for a beginner student and > then replace piano within a year or two; 3) if the piano were not > going to be replaced, then I recommended full action regulation and > repairs. Hubby asked repeatedly if we shouldn't do the full monty > anyway, I said that was fine, but that if they were going to replace > it within a couple years, that I could make it function reasonably > well for half the full monty cost. They agreed to the minimal > regulation/repair approach to restore function. I told them I would > call them to schedule the work. > > Before I left, I raised the pitch of the piano 50 to 90 cents and > spliced a bass string that broke during the pitch raise (man, that was > the loudest break I have heard yet!). Told them we could settle up $$ > when I complete all the work. > > Except for three trips to tune PPT piano, sounds okay so far - right? > > So, yesterday evening, PPT calls and leaves message - "How come you > are charging Mrs. Funky Case (FC) $X to tune her piano when mine only > cost $X/4?" PPT apparently played the FC piano when they bought it > ($300) a few months back - she concluded that the piano played just > fine. I called her back after waiting for the smoke to stop coming out > of my ears....... I explained to her about action wear and regulation. > Fortunately I was able to incorporate what PPT and I had talked about > with the excessive let-off on PPT Yamy. I also explained that half the > notes on FC piano had gone so far out of regulation that they were > bobbling (multiple strikes) AND that several hammer/butt assemblies > where FALLING OFF AND that another dozen were very loose. She > explained to me that FC didn't even want to tune the piano, but that > PPT had told FC that the piano was sooooo far out of tune that she > really should have it tuned (wow, imagine that). She told me there was > no reason to do any more work on FC piano that what I did to her piano > (PR + tune). I bit my tongue and said that was fine with me, but that > the piano was untunable as notes were bobbling and hammers were > falling off and were not even hitting a number of strings and that I > would not be able to tune the piano. Goodbye! (I was maybe a tad > huffy, but given the situation, I think I kept it quite reasonably > under control.) > > Okay. There it is, that brings anyone that has read this long diatribe > this far up to the current situation. I'm of two minds: 1) Do not do > any more business with PPT or ANY client spun off from her AND, when > someone calls asking for a discount, tell them YOU DON"T DISCOUNT > PERIOD!!!!; or 2) Do whatever FC wants and try to make them as happy > as possible. Mrs. FC and Mr. FC really seemed very nice and concerned > about having a decent piano for their children (four) to play. > > Believe me, I have no problem at all walking away from ANY work > related to PPT and her spin-offs. I value peace and low stress in my > life. BUT, I would like to help them if they want to have their > children playing on a functional piano. Can anyone think of an > approach to convey to Mr. & Mrs. FC that I'm not trying to rip them > off, that their piano is worn to the point of disfunction, and that it > will be a detriment to their children's piano progress and experience > to have to practice on that piano in its current condition. Heck, I > don't really need to take the action back to my shop to repin a dozen > action centers - the main reason I was going to take the action back > to my shop was that I was going to file the hammers at no charge - > that didn't need to be done to restore function, but I just couldn't > stand it! > > I find this situation bizzare. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. Right > after I got off the phone with PPT when we set our initial > appointment, I walked over to my wife and told her about the discount, > and I said that I just know something really funky is going to happen > with this teacher. I know I shouldn't have given her a discount, but > with business being a little on the slow side, I'd rather tune several > pianos at $10 off rather than zero pianos at full price - but I just > know something bad is going to shake out from doing this. > > Any suggestions to help four kids get a functioning set of keys under > their little fingers? > > Oh, and, I have not yet called FC back to pick up action (since PPT > told them there was no reason to repair/regulate their piano). > > I'm glad this list is here for venting. I feel a bit better! > Thanks! :-) > > Terry Farrell > > PS, I hope there are not too many misspellings and grammatical errors > in this post. I usually re-read before sending, but in this case, in > an effort to not get all steamed up again, I'm just going to hit send > now! > > _________________________________________________________________ http://redirect.gimas.net/?n=M1003xHM5Adressen2 Ein Postfach für Alles – bei Hotmail 5 E-Mail-Adressen online verwalten! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100324/03624fa5/attachment-0001.htm>
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