Klarinet Archive - Posting 000569.txt from 1999/07
From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Why I don't frequent my local music stores ...
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 23:17:56 -0400
At 10:37 PM 7/18/1999 -0400, Mark Charette wrote:
>From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
>> For example, we DON'T
>> have loaners, except for our own rentals and those who have purchased
>> maintenance contracts from us (with occasional exceptions, such as new
>> clarinets with cracks).
>
>Actually, Bill, I didn't put the rest of the details into that story:
>
>That _was_ a rental w/ maintenance contract, and we were told at band rental
>night that loaners would be available. When we had a problem they said they
>didn't have any loaners. I then told them I'd pay off the clarinet and they
>could give me the new one they promised. That's when they told me that I
>wasn't going to _get_ a new one. This is from the company that has a lock on
>the school districts in the north east section of Metro Detroit.
>
Sometimes you run out of loaners. But it sounds like this outfit's biggest
problem is that it DOES have a lock on the area! They need some competition!
>> I personally wish we HAD a pool of trial
>> mouthpieces, so people COULD try them out without scarring up new ones.
>(I
>> may have to talk to the boss about that.)
>
>Why not be like the mail order places and make sure you have tape or supply
>fabric ligatures and have a "you scratch, you buy" policy?
>
Teeth marks are a bigger problem than ligature marks. Sure, we could
provide mouthpiece patches, too, but it starts to get pretty involved.
That's why a pool of gently used ones made more sense to me, if we could
accumilate them.
>> Yes, our guys usually do a sort of "triage" and push some easy
>> stuff to the front of the line just to get it out, but you can't
>> necessarily count on them dropping everything and taking care of YOUR
>> problem just because you are you.
>
>But that's the point - if I'm a good, steady customer the business needs to
>treat me better than someone right off the street. It's a hard balancing
>act, I know. Some days I put in 14 or 16 hours because a customer of mine
>has an emergency & I respond, even though there's no contract in place for
>the work. Once in a great while I get stiffed, but mostly our business grows
>because we get good recommendations from those people we help in time of
>need.
>
And we often DO go the extra mile for our regular customers. But you can't
automatically count on it every time. We can't risk putting off all those
other potential regular customers. Like you say, it is a balancing act.
>However, stiffing us even once is a very bad idea ... it's a very small
>community of people who do what I do :^)
>
You wouldn't believe how many people stiff us on rentals!
Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://www.concentric.net/~bhausman
Essexville, MI 48732 http://members.wbs.net/homepages/z/o/o/zoot14.html
ICQ UIN 4862265
If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.
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