Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum The things you will do for a customer

OK, I’ll spell it out. Any service professional will encounter abusive customers. Since we are all humans we will react emotionally. Sometimes we will act abusive in return. At some point we should just “walk away” as many that have shared on this topic have done. If we don’t, we should examine what we did instead and come up with a plan so that next time we just “walk away.”

Jerry bragged about how he did not walk away. He bragged about how the customer is not always right. In this case, when all was said and done, there was no customer. It really bothers me that no one else sees what happened in the way I do. An appointment to tune a piano resulted in the piano being worse off than how it started, which Jerry took delight in! It seems that Jerry might have been able to learn something from the “flake” (a demeaning term he used) that tuned it before.

Jerry also made a post trying to bully me off this forum. This type of arrogance is displayed by a few of the regular posters here, and accepted by most. I try to warn hobbyists away from here so that they will not receive this sort of abuse.

If I leave this forum again it will be for the same reason that I did last time and for the same reason I lurked for so long before first posting. I do not not like being part of this kind of arrogance. But, I have to take the good with the bad to stay here. If it gets bad enough, I will leave because I choose to not be part of it, not because anyone else does not want want me here.

Good one Bob,

I have had several variations of that scenario……. I especially like the one where you can hear them moving around in the house but they don’t answer the front door……

Sold a piano to a customer once that just wouldn’t stay in tune. I would tune the instrument and then 2-4 weeks later the customer would call and complain. I attended the residence and the piano was way out. After several attempts at correcting this situation I started to ask questions about the lifestyle here. It turned out that every day when leaving for work they would change the heat from 72 degrees down to 60….and then back up….daily……….

My final tuning was the day I learned this fact. I could not for the life of me get this fellow to understand that changes of this type made the instrument run out of tune. I guess in the end he did not want to understand……….

Dan Silverwood
www.silverwoodpianos.com

What he saved on heat he gave back to you... to tune the piano...

Somewhat in the same vein, I once had a customer who ran a Bed and Breakfast establishment who would not pay his bill. He disappeared after showing me the piano, and never paid despite repeated billings. Incredibly, a couple of years later I got a call to the same address. Thinking the establishment had changed hands, I went to the place, and there was the same dead-beat!

I'm sure he didn't recognize me, and again he showed me the piano and again disappeared. I waited a few minutes, then knocked on the door that he had gone through. 'No answer after several knocks. It wasn't a big place, so I knew he could hear me.

A nicer person would have simply left. I did leave, but not before detuning the piano a bit. A couple of weeks later another tuner in the area that I hardly knew called laughing and told me he had been called to repair my work. The B&B owner had stiffed him earlier, and he said, "I improved upon your work a bit. The thing sounded really horrible when I left!"

I noticed a year later that the B&B had closed.

I don't think anybody tried to bully you off the forum. We may have tried to find out if you were for real or just one of the snipers. Email does not convey the appropriate body language and tone of voice so to take something like that as a personal attack isn't right. Unright obviously violated his own principles by sniping that comment at Jerry. After saying all that flowerey stuff about having the choice and how he is better than Jerry because he walks away, he certainly isn't following those princples now. The abuse delivered to Jerry in the previous post is in no way any less than the abuse Jerry gave back to the client and was far less appropriate. I think Jerry did the right thing in reacting as a human being in the face of an unreasonable person. Chances are she was an alcoholic (It takes one to know one)and sometimes there is no good way to deal with one.

So Unright, it seems there was only one reason for your post and that reason contradicts everything you said in the explanation...
I don't get it. Why did you post that in the first place?

Ah, yes. When you point out abuse to an abuser, they usually claim that pointing out is abuse in itself. But then wouldn’t the claim also be abuse?

Bob Newbie,

You are correct.Good point!

But I did give up on that one.Working with customers should not turn into a war, maybe someone else would state it differently to him but I am not so sure......

Dan Silverwood
www.silverwoodpianos.com

Pointing out abuse is one thing. Sniping a comment like that is an abusive way of doing it. It was no different than Jerry's way of dealing with the customer. It had no tact and was just another shot in the war.

Keith:

Thanks for keeping this going. I thought you would. I am going to assume that the snipe you are referring to is “Thanks for explaining again what you are really like.” If there was nothing shameful, only honorable, in Jerry’s actions it would not have been considered a snipe. I see it as a good thing that Jerry took offense, which was my intent, to show that he did not feel completely OK with his actions. What I did was chastisement, not abuse.

Oops, I missed the forest for the trees! If you think that what I did was abusive and you think that it was ”no different than Jerry’s way of dealing with the customer” then you must also think that Jerry was abusive. Perhaps you misspoke. I hope not…

This thread WAS about things you will do for a customer but unfortunately it has now been turned into SOMETHING ELSE which is about members.

Enough of this one for me……….. :rolleyes:

Dan Silverwood
www.silverwoodpianos.com

Dan:

I have a similar complaint. This thread WAS about things you will do for a customer but unfortunately quickly also became about things you will do to a customer. I could not keep silent.

I have a two-day old story of a terrific customer putting up with me...

I tune for a very nice young lady that schedules her appointments by email. Well, this last time, I had someone else reschedule, so I could schedule her only several days later. In my reply, I meant to type (in reference to the other customer) the words:

"... who rescheduled ..."

Unfortunately, it came out differently. My careless fat fingers working at 100 mph typed out:

"... whore scheduled ..."

Instead of typing:
"...w-h-o-spacebar-r-e-s-c-h-e-d-u-l-e-d",
I typed:
"...w-h-o-r-e-spacebar-s-c-h-e-d-u-l-e-d"

Needless to say, I was horrified when I reread my response attached in her return email. Of course I apologized for my error.

Sometimes customers put up with us, too

Hang in there!
-Joe

Bravo, Jerry! Well said...

Dood! You must seriously lighten up!

Have you ever heard of " If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" ?

Thanks for your support people. I do appreciate it.

I don't understand the theory behind what Tooner is doing other than, in a few of his own postings in the past, he himself has said that he has "issues and that he shouldn't be posting." Whatever that means... Why he chooses to all of a sudden pick on me, I can't say. I haven't even talked with him since he returned again.

At any rate, we are here to help one another, to contribute valuable information not to fight.

I reported this thread to Ken Knapp because this is not the first time Tooner has done this to myself or to others in this tech forum.

Enough already Jeff.
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Now, on the positive side of things?

I had a customer that we contacted last week, she has a nice Yamaha grand that hasn't been tuned in 3 or 4 years now because she is in dire need financially. So, what did I do for my customer that used to tune it yearly? Just for her, I dropped my price by $55 just to help her out. I'm not positive but, it sounded like she was about to cry!

She said, I have so badly wanted to get my piano tuned but, just could not afford it. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I said, well, you're welcome!

I don't do this very often but, hey, we help when we can help right?

Jerry...

Too bad this thread turned ugly. Too bad this forum software doesn't have an "ignore" function. Jeff's mantra seems to be "do as I say, not as I do." Turn the other cheek, eh?

Anyway, on the positive side of things and kind of relating to Jerry's story immediately above, I got a call to come tune a piano I just tuned in October for a young, newly married couple. (Maybe I'm a softie for the woman because she reminds me of my little sister.)

I was a bit curious to hear the piano since, like I said, I was just there in October. Maybe I didn't set the pins right? I'm always frightened perhaps I'm doing something wrong since I still consider myself a "newbie" at tuning.

So I get there and she says, "Well, it's really only a couple of notes here and there." She plays one of the high C#s and I can tell immediately that one of the unisons is out, by at least a half-step. Obviously not normal. Most of the real bad offenders were in the upper treble. "The rest of the piano sounds great," she said.

Sure, enough, the outside right unison was out. The bottom pins of the offending notes were incredibly loose. They didn't feel that bad in October, but Michigan had just recently went though a real warm-spell (it was 50+ degress that day after being in the teens the previous week). I gently tapped the offending pins a bit and suggested that we might want to do a CA treatment on the piano sometime in the future. I tuned the notes, even fixed a keytop that was coming off, and said, "Thanks for calling. I'll call you in six months to see how it's doing and possibly schedule another tuning".

"What do I owe you?"

"Nothing. I'll see you in the spring."

She was thrilled, because she really didn't have the money for a tuning, but just couldn't live with those few unisons being so far out. I even showed her how to tune them herself since she had a tuning hammer and mute from the previous owner of the piano. She agreed to do a CA treatment in the spring, so that will be great.

Ah, I knew it!! Just got off the phone with a fellow who thinks “it just needs a tuning"…..When was your piano last tuned sir……don’t remember.

Can you play middle C over the phone for me?

Thanks, this is not middle C anymore this is now B flat below….. Can you tell me what kind of piano it is…..this should be on the front board above the keys…..

Oh yes, it says Whitney………..

Ron, Jerry, anyone, are you busy at all???Need a long distance customer??……help me doctor….help me…..into the Abyss…….

Dan Silverwood
www.silverwoodpianos.com

Ah Yes!!!! The wonerful Whitney. My sympathies Dan!!!! This week for me been a week of Wurlitzers and a Kimball grand. Here in the Lowlands of the Low-end PianoLand, I just dont think I can take a Whitney, especially one I have to travel to.