[pianotech] billing dilemma with pitch raises

[Don Mannino]

David,

As Wim said, it depends if you charge by the hour or by the job.  I would
strongly suggest that you do not charge by the hour, unless you have a way
to fill the open time in the middle of the day with other work.

I once had a customer tell me I only had 45 minutes to do the piano because
they had to leave by then.  I said, well, OK - tried to talk them into
letting me take my usual 1.5-2 hour appointment time, but the man was
insistent.

So I hurried through, got a good solid tuning and not much else, and he said
he was going to pay me 1/2 because I didn't take as long.  I smiled and said
no, I don't charge by the hour, I charge by the service provided.  If he
chooses to limit my time that is his choice, but his piano is in tune and
that is what I am charging him for.

He hemmed and hawed, but paid the bill.

So, charge for the job you do, and remember that often the piano owner has
saved a lot of money by not tuning the piano in a long time.

Another way some people do it is to simply charge for the double tuning all
the time, especially in climates more severe than here in coastal
California.  Then if it doesn't need the extra tuning time you can fill the
time with regulation, voicing, cleaning, etc.

Don Mannino RPT


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of David Nereson
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 10:05 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] billing dilemma with pitch raises

    Most tunings take me an hour and a half.  And for that amount of time I
charge $X.
    But often, after a pitch raise, which gets the piano pretty close to
being in tune, the final fine tuning only takes an hour.
    Say the pitch raise took 1/2 hr, and the final tuning an hour.  That's
an hour an a half.  How do I now justify charging extra for the pitch raise
when a "plain vanilla" tuning also takes an hour and a half and I only
charge $X for it?
   Or to look at it another way, if you charge $X per hour and base your
tuning fee on that, then go do a tuning and pitch raise that only takes 1
1/2 hrs., but you still charge extra for the pitch raise, then now you're
charging more than $X per hour.
    --David Nereson, RPT