>I ask the customer if they want it tuned every six months or a year and in my scheduler I mark the actually tuning date + 1 year then a little before that time, call the customer, remind them that they agreed to the time frame and then schedule a time with the customer. Duaine< My method is very similar. I ask if they would like to tentatively book a year ahead (or 6 months and a year, if they're doing it twice a year) for the same day of the week at the same time. That puts them one calendar date earlier - for example for a tuning today, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2011 I would be booking ahead for Tuesday, Jan. 31 of 2011. I ordinarily put it down for the same time of the day as well. I always tell people that I will of course call ahead a couple days in advance to double check, and that I am flexible. With that assurance, nearly all of my customers do pre-book. The flexibility is a 2-way street, by the way. I was planning to travel up I-35 today to tune 6 pianos in Mason City, a 2 hour drive. With the weather as bad as it is, I canceled those jobs last night, and made appointments to tune 5 pianos in Ames (15 miles away) which were booked a few weeks down the road. I cut them a $15 discount each for their cooperation in the matter. (They're happy and my wife's happy, and if my wife's happy, everybody's happy.) The $15 discount is what I generally offer if I'm the one having to make a switch. Cuts down greatly on the grumbling, I've found, and makes situations like today's much easier to deal with. I go to a large number of little towns and cities around Iowa. The other thing that I do is to earmark certain days on my calendar for certain towns. If I need to switch dates for a customer, I will ask that they switch to one of the other days that I will be in town. The incentive to them to have their piano tuned on one of those days is that I don't charge mileage (I call them "local-rate days.") On those days I charge the same rate as what I charge my customers in Boone. Customers love this, and it saves me from driving all over creation to get to my jobs. To answer the original question, if I've called on Sunday, let's say, to remind the customer of an appointment on Wednesday, and they ask me to call them the night before, what do I say? I say "Sure, no problem!" The last thing I want is to get to there house and find it locked up with nobody home. I simply put a little post-a-note on the tuning card. The evening before, I always put my cards on top of my tuning case, so that they're ready to go. If there are any last minute notification notes, I call them before I hit the sack. If arrival time is an issue (for example, if they need to leave work to run home and open the house for me), I'll furthermore arrange to call their workplace or cell at a predetermined time before I arrive - usually when I leave the previous appointment. Again, it beats getting there and having the door locked. (Or having the customer having to wait for me because I'm behind schedule.) I'm sure this will sound crazy to some of you, but it works for me. Chuck -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110201/899b0d5a/attachment-0001.htm>
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