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Interesting Customer Relation Stories

  • 1.  Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 10-16-2017 14:22
    Hello all,

    Does anyone have an interesting experience with customers that you'd be willing to share? Could be awkward, could be one of those "seriously?" moments, etc. And, how did you react?

    I'll start:

    My first industry job was an estimate for my piano students mom. She wanted to know how much it would cost to have their piano tuned and fixed up. So I go to their house, nervous as all get out, open the piano, start to look, and then dad comes in.

    I had never seen dad before. So when mom called me over, she said, "Benjamin, this is my husband Brian. He's in operations."

    Brian was in the Air Force, and I found out latter was in charge of strike operations. He was a big, buff guy, in a tank top, wearing his sunglasses indoors, and didn't smile. He didn't even say hi, just grunted. 

    Im standing there, with my knees shaking, already scared to death because this is my first job, then this terrifying military guy stands there and is staring me down! Yikes! Then he asked me what I was assessing. I tried my best to explain.

    About half way through he cut me off abruptly and said, "No, no, no! I want to know what the risk is to my piano. I mean, in which way will my piano be vulnerable during tuning?" Every question he asked was in military operations terms, and I had a hard time keeping up.

    I tried my best to reassure him that the piano would be fine while getting tuned, and would come out better in the end, but there are some things that I'm not sure if a strike commander fully understands.

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sanchez
    Professional Piano Services
    (805)315-8050
    www.professional-piano-services.com
    BenPianoPro@comcast.net
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Posted 10-16-2017 14:44
    Oh Benjamin! What a great story :-)  That's a keeper! 

    I've got one that I'll share, but right now have to get to my next appt.

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    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Posted 10-16-2017 21:29
    So, about 21 years ago when I was new at piano tuning, an older man called me for a tuning, although he was looking for another person. However, I convinced him to give me a try. I had a family to feed! When I got to the house I tuned up his little spinet, probably a Wurlitzer, and after a little chitchat (I found out that he was a retired Lutheran pastor.) I was on my way. A few days later he called me and said the piano just didn't sound right. So, I made another appt to check it out. Well, when I arrived, before I could even get to the piano, he had his encyclopedia out and was telling me how to tune a piano! I remember him saying that every note had to be "consecutive". Looking back, I had told him I was new and so in his mind that meant incompetent. Anyway, we finally got to the piano and (I don't mean to make fun of him) with his shaking hand he tried to play a note and really not much sound was coming out. I sat down and played it and told him it was fine, which it was. Hey, it was a spinet... We talked for a while and I finally convinced him it was in tune. I'll admit, I was tempted just to give him his money back but I decided that it was a good tuning I just wasn't going to do that. I told him that I'd stand behind my tuning! But that wasn't the end of it (this is where the retired Lutheran pastor comes in). Somehow we got into an argument about infant baptism and believers baptism. I don't know if you have any religious training but this can be a big bone of contention between different Christian denominations. Infant baptism isn't in the Bible, however it's a tradition passed down through the years that many denominations, especially Lutherans, hold on to. I don't agree with that view. Whew! So, finally I got out of there and I never returned.

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 10-16-2017 21:41
    And, Scott, you probably learned, as I did, to think and observe carefully before discussing either religion or politics.

    Your adventure did remind me of a Lutheran minister I was tuning for when a Jehovah's Witness guy came to the door. Instead of my usual polite ploy to get the door shut again, he started discussing doctrine! And the Jehovah's Witness fellow started to quote Scripture, and the Lutheran minister told him he was wrong about what he thought it really said, and quoted the Greek to prove it. Meanwhile, I'm quietly tuning and thoroughly enjoying what I'm overhearing. They were not speaking softly, either.

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    Susan Kline
    Philomath, Oregon
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Posted 10-17-2017 18:25

    And, Scott, you probably learned, as I did, to think and observe carefully before discussing either religion or politics.
    Susan Kline,  10-16-2017 21:40
    Yep!

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    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Posted 10-16-2017 21:33

    He was a big, buff guy, in a tank top, wearing his sunglasses indoors, and didn't smile.
    Benjamin Sanchez,  10-16-2017 14:22
    That reminds me of a movie called Airplane that's a spoof on disaster movies. It's become a classic. Anyway, in one of the scenes an older tough guy is taking charge of this situation! He has sunglasses on, pulls them off, and there's another pair of sunglasses under those... :-)  Maybe you had to be there ;-)

    ------------------------------
    "That Tuning Guy"
    Scott Kerns
    www.thattuningguy.com
    Tunic OnlyPure & TuneLab user
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 10-16-2017 22:57
    Must have been 1987 or so that My employer at the time needed me to deliver an upright to a church in rural Georgia two days after Christmas. Fortunately my lifelong best friend wasn't doing anything that day and agreed to make the two and a half hour drive up from Tallahassee with me to do the installation. Andrew had been out on a number of interesting piano moves with me and had had a front row seat watching me struggle to learn the basics of this craft for the preceding five years. The installation went off without a hitch and then the church pianist asked if I wouldn't mind stopping by his home to check out the "tubby" sound in the bass section of his baby grand. I looked at Andrew and raised an eyebrow and he shrugged and said "sure" so off we went. When we got to the house we found a 5'7" or so grand maybe 10 years old or so with dead bass strings. Interestingly the bass hammers had green string marks while the rest of the hammers looked normal. While playing the instrument and desperately trying to think of a reason that this fairly new piano had gone completely dead in the bass one of the bass dampers suddenly hung up in the air and would not return to it's rest position without digital assistance. The church pianist's wife who was sitting next to the piano observing the proceedings called out to her husband who had gone into the kitchen to fix us some refreshments "Billy! That damper's hanging again. Bring the WD-40!"  Andrew and I looked at one another and laughed as he had heard me talk about WD-40 as the bane of the piano world many times. I'll leave you to imagine the look on our faces when the church pianist walked into the living room and nonchalantly began to spray WD-40 all over the strings, guide rail and hammers. My employer's regular moving crew delivered a new baby grand to the church pianist's home in early January of the following year. For the rest of his too short life Andrew and I would remark "Billy: Bring the WD-40!" anytime we saw someone about to make a well intentioned mistake. Thank you Mr. Sanchez for making me re-visit this memory.

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    Karl Roeder
    Pompano Beach FL
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 10-17-2017 02:48
    It was a week before Christmas.  The call to tune came from a new customer in rural N. Michigan.  It was the last tuning of the day and light was failing.  I arrived at a run down farmhouse with an old refrigerator and car tires strewn about  in the front yard, you know the kind.  
        I was ushered into the darkened unlit dining room and found a large, very old grand piano.  I asked the couple if they could turn on the lights.  They strung an extension cord from another room with a single light bulb at the end.  As I attempted to lift the lid, it was apparent that the hinge pins were both missing, so the man of the house and I lifted the lid off the piano. 
        The instrument was horribly out of tune and as I began to work, few pins would stay where they were put.  When the tuning wrench was lifted, the pins would return to their previous position.  Upon closer inspection, someone had driven nails into the plate alongside each pin in an attempt to tighten them. 
        It was obvious I was wasting my time on a dead horse, and politely told the owners so.  They said the piano had been given to them and this was their first tuning.  The lady then broke into tears and said they wanted to get the piano tuned in order to sing Christmas carols with it.  So I relented and did the best I could with this "Wreck of the Hesperus",  didn't charge them, bid them Merry Christmas and made a hasty departure.

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    Mike Kurta, RPT
    N. Michigan chapter
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 10-17-2017 10:46
    Oh my gosh!! These stories are great! You just CANNOT make this stuff up! 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤠🤠🤠


    ------------------------------
    [Kevin] [Fortenberry] [RPT]
    [Staff Techician]
    [Texas Tech Univ]
    [Lubbock] [TX]
    [8067783962]
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 10-17-2017 00:43
    Benjamin and all,

    Below is a link to YouTube with me telling the story of tuning Axl Rose's piano.  While at SCRC a couple of years ago I was receiving my annual haircut from Rikki Klos and was recorded unknowingly while telling this story.



     
    Carl Lieberman
    www.CarlPianoTech.com



    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 10-17-2017 08:27

    (I wrote the following several years ago.)


    In my piano tuning business I usually give my customers a phone call every six months or once a year to remind them that it is time to retune their piano.  Once I called lady here in town whose piano I had tuned several times, and she seemed genuinely puzzled that I had called.


    "How did you get this telephone number?" she asked.  I replied, "It's right here on my record card.  It's is the same number I called six months ago when I tuned your piano."  "That's impossible!" she exclaimed.  "I'm at a hotel in Las Vegas for my high school class reunion.  There's no way you could have this telephone number."


    Now I was genuinely puzzled.   Had I dialed the local (Oklahoma City) telephone number, and somehow managed to reach her in Las Vegas?  Being a quick thinker I asked if she was having her calls forwarded from home to her hotel room in Las Vegas.  "I don't have call forwarding," she screamed and she demanded to know how I had obtained her hotel number.  She was beginning to sound very upset and angry so I apologized for whatever had happened.  She said she would call me when she got back into town and hung up the phone.  I wasn't so sure I wanted her to.


    Well, about a month later she did call.  As it turns out she had indeed been in Las Vegas but had become ill while she was there.  The doctor put her on some heavy medication and then she and her husband flew home.  She was under the influence of the medication when she received my call sincerely thinking she was still in Las Vegas.  She apologized for sounding like a crazy woman and we proceeded to have a good laugh over the whole situation.


    Gary Bruce
    Registered Piano Technician
    CLICK HERE to schedule your next piano tuning.

    405-285-8324 (store)
    405-413-8863 (cell)
    BruceMusicStore.com

    We would love for you to connect with us!



    Original Message


  • 12.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 10-17-2017 08:59

    When still self-employed out in Seattle, I had a customer I never met.  He would regularly call me every 6 months, and had his neighbor let me in to the house.  There were no pictures anywhere, and I'm guessing he was elderly as his furnishings were very dated, but in immaculate condition.  There was always a check on the piano with a thank you note, so I would place his receipt there on the piano. It was a Samick grand.  I went there for many years before we moved to Lincoln, NE for the job at UNL. He was always very nice on the phone and had no problems with me being in his house by myself.

    Paul




    Original Message


  • 13.  RE: Interesting Customer Relation Stories

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 01-18-2019 01:05
    -Long Post-

    Hello all,

    Had another interesting story from today to share. I was called to the house of a new client. As I walked in I found out they were of Asian decent. For those of you who have little or no Asian clients, many Asian cultures share these things in common: The house is kept immaculate, and they don't where shoes inside. 

    I of course removed my shoes and proceeded to inspect the piano. It hadn't been tuned in many years, and needed a lot of work. I said she had booked a two hour appointment, but the piano really needs about three hours of work to bring it back to minimum playability. Would she like me to do the extra hour today or just the scheduled time? She looked at her watch and said, "oh I have time."

    "So you would like me to work three hours on your piano for $XXX to bring it back to minimum playability?"

    "That much? I thought you meant doing the extra for free," she said sheepishly. We both laughed, and I proceeded with my two hour appointment. About half way though I noticed my index finger was bleeding slightly. Nothing serious, but I put a bandaid on to keep the dirt out.

    On my way out the door I was talking with the client as I put my shoes back on. Suddenly I felt the bandaid fall off. Panic struck! I was trying to look her in the eyes while talking (generally considered inpolite if you don't), keep a straight face, and look for the bandaid all at once! I felt around but couldn't find it. There was no way I could leave a bloody bandaid lying somewhere on their immaculate floor!

    When I couldn't think of anything else to say, I decided it was time to leave. After saying goodbye and making my way to the car, I checked my shoe. The little devil made its way in there somehow!

    Oh well, all's well that end's well, I suppose!

    ------------------------------
    Benjamin Sanchez
    Professional Piano Services
    (805)315-8050
    www.professional-piano-services.com
    ------------------------------

    Original Message