With all the discussions lately about good and bad dealers, I was thinking we could post polls for each dealer.

I need your input as to the criteria we should be ranking them on.

This poll is just a first try.
Please post your suggestions for additional questions here.

Ratings are on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the highest rating. Each participant can only vote once.
Each dealer would have their own poll.

Questions in this first poll include:

Overall Experience
Selection
Prices
Condition of Pianos
Preparation
Service
Delivery
Warranty
Returns Policy
Showroom Condition
Salesperson Knowledge

- Frank B.
Piano World

Frank, could we add:

* Parking and handicapped accessibility
* Bathroom facilities

I know that these are not piano-related, but can greatly contribute to the comfort of potential customers, especially those who may have traveled a distance to visit the showroom.

Thanks . . . Linda

Would a voter have to vote on every category, or could they pick and choose? I'd suggest that if a voter has to vote on every category, you also include some way for a voter to indicate their good or bad experiences in some of these categories of the dealer's service, while having a way for them to indicate that they did not have sufficient information to rate other categories. I think that this option is a must in order for the ratings to be as "fair and balanced" (C) as possible.

Dwain,

I'm not sure if you could be selective about which categories to vote on. I've already voted once to test, but didn't test that.
Somebody else will need to test selective voting for me.

I wasn't planning on providing the ability to include comments, in an effort to avoid another ***** ***** thread. But, it is worth considering provided we include the caveats about sticking to the facts.

- Frank B.
Piano World

Hello Frank,

For me, the ability to include comments would be essential to convey the requisite information about the dealers I've visited, and to maximize the usefulness of my feedback to readers.

Nuances such as one salesperson being excellent, whereas another salesperson at the same store being best avoided, are nuggets for our readers.

BTW, this example of which salesperson to deal with is commonly mentioned in the edmunds.com car boards (the town hall discussions section). One would think if there were any legal issues, they already would have arisen in edmunds.

Another reason I think the 1 - 5 categories are dangerous and insufficient: one person's 4 is another person's 5 or 3.

I suggest that the mean (or median) numbers from a poll are useful; but specific comments would IMHO be even more informative.

Hi Frank,

You have to answer every question, or you get a message that says

"You did not provide valid information in the following fields:
Answer for question 9"

Perhaps you could make one of the "answers" be N/A to allow people to skip a question.

Also, there are some of us living where there are multiple dealers and we have experience with many/all of them. So, limiting us to one response prevents us sharing that information with everyone.

Dan

Hi Dan,

My thought was to create one poll for each dealer.
The header information would include basic details about the dealer (location, phone, possibly lines carried, etc.).

I could allow replies to the poll, which would accomodate comments. But, I'd probably have to make them moderated to avoid potential trouble.

I'm trying to come up with a way of communicating peoples experiences with various dealers as a way of providing our members/guests with some guidelines. At the same time, I want to avoid lengthy threads that end up off topic.

- Frank B.
Piano World

Frank, on another thread titled Consumer Reviews of Piano Stores, I expressed my hesitance on the subject and instead mentioned the possibility of a FAQ concerning what to look for in a piano store, what questions to ask regarding return policies, documentation of after sale service, price protection, etc.... As well as things to look for among the inventory (wide selection, good used department, own service staff, condition of instruments on the floor, etc...) I feel this would be a much better tool for piano shoppers than a poll such as this, with or without additional comments.

As I stated before, there are too many danger areas to consumers and dealers in something like this. If I had a bad experience at one store of a multistore chain, should that experience reflect on all the other stores in the chain? Steve Cohen and the other dealers can back me up on the fact that there are some clients with unreasonable demands that cannot be met. Who is going to be more likely to post a review, the client that is happy and enjoying their new piano, or someone with a perceived slight with the company, perhaps through no fault of the dealer? Unfortunately, history proves that the the one that feels slighted will respond before 40 satisfied customers will. This will end up giving an inaccurate view of the dealers represented, will hurt their business, and will hurt prospective clients that may have had an enjoyable, educational experience, but were scared away because of one or two negative reviews, whether they were justified or not. There are several other arguments concerning this, I don't know how to post a link to that thread, but if you go back and read it, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Luke's Dad,

Good suggestions.
I want to help our visitors make good decisions, without putting ourselves in jeapordy.
You make a good point that unhappy people are more likely to post than happy ones.

If you can find the other post, copy and paste
the full url from the address window at the top
of your browser.

OK, I think I got it!

Consumer review of piano stores.