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About Communicating with Customers
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About Communicating with Customers
So, I’m a month and a half into this repair business and so far so good. I think I’ve got more than adequate skills to handle the physical, customers have been coming in and balancing a relationship with starting a new business is going well. But……
The scariest thing is how to handle customers and the things they love. So far, I’ve been able to test the waters on repairing fairly inexpensive, not too attached to instruments, easing my way into this. But Yesterday I was thrown into the deep end, like John Wayne throwing the kid into the pond in that movie.
A women brought in a ’33 Gibson L-00. It’s her daily driver and she loves it dearly. It’s had extensive repair work done over the years. Some bad some good. It’s still all original. So here’s the scary part: How to converse and translate in repair speak and translate to her the ever mounting repairs that need to be done. She is very open and fairly knowledgeable and is easy to work with. I am not bad at socializing so, so far so good. But what kept me up last night is walking the tightrope between babying an antique and keeping it playable, and most importantly, affordable. I watched vids on the masters addressing this question (particularly Ted W. in Canada who confronts this just about every episode). So far, the price for 90% of the work has been agreed upon but I have two things I’m weighing I hope you’ll help me with. The guitar has the original ebony nut that needs to be either shimmed or replaced and the original tuners are just this side of exploding.
I told her that I would shim the nut as part of the price. But after removing the nut, I realized that it’s wood and modern wound strings are going to grind it down, and have been grinding it down. And I’d like to replace the tuners because she plays every day. So, after all you’ve read to get here, the question is this:
How do I address the vintage issues (using original nut and keeping original tuners, which will fail in the short term) vs. playability? Do I ask to replace, and advise that she can keep the vintage items and easily re-install later if she sells the instrument or do I keep it all original for the sake of heritage? I know that the value of what was still a cheap instrument when she bought it ten years ago has exploded since then (although extensive questionable repairs may have a large impact on this?).
I know most of you have been dealing with this for years and any advice is so humbly welcome!
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5 Replies
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These are all very deep questions and are starting to get more and more complicated on these guitars. One of the things that catched my attention from the top is that you are dealing with original parts that can be take on and put back on with little effort. This is the perfect time to think about taking the OG parts off, bagging them, putting them in the case and then replacing with modern equivalents with modern functionality that doesn’t modify the guitar.
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Almost forgot, these golden age tuners should drop right in to most L00 with neither fuss and/or muss.
https://stewmac.sjv.io/golden-age-solid-peghead-tuners-
Ian,
Thank you so much for the input! The customer and I are on a plan. We will replace originals for functionality. And I am going to get the tuners you recommend. Thanks for the great advice and knowledge and getting to me so quickly! Yay!
Tony
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I think this is something that every one who does this job struggles with — probably because there’s no good answer. There’s no one-size-fits-all. What I do (and probably what most of us do) is explain the situation clearly and lay things out in terms of playability versus originality. We can make recommendations but the final call is down to the owner. I usually err on the side of over-communicating. I’ll explain in as much detail as the customer wants. I often draw little sketches when I think it’ll help.
Some owners are vintage-correct nuts and don’t want absolutely anything changed. Others are very practical and just want a guitar that plays well, not giving a damn about how it looks, how original it is, and how much it’s worth. Most fall on the spectrum somewhere between these two ends and all we can do is explain what we recommend, why we’re recommending it, and the compromises that exist in both decisions. Then we let the customer make the call.
It sounds like your customer is skewed more towards practical and the fact that there’s already been repair work to the instrument can make it easier for them to decide to proceed with more. From what you’ve said, I’m with Ian on this. It seems that bagging up some original hardware and replacing it with something appropriate is a reasonable way to go. Tuners and nut aren’t going to mean any invasive, irreversible changes so I think you can rest easy there.
As for anything that is invasive or irreversible, like I said: Explain how you’ll do the job, why you recommend it, and what it means if (a) you do it and (b) you don’t do it.
The last thing (which probably isn’t relevant here but is worth saying) is that you need to be pretty sure you can do a good job on anything you undertake. We all have to push ourselves sometimes and take a chance on a job that’s on the edge of our skills — that’s part of how we grow. We just need to be judicious about when we do those jobs and what the downside might be if we can’t pull it out of the bag as well as we thought. It’s always good to consider these things a little more carefully when the terribly expensive instrument is on our bench.
My two cents.
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Thank you so much for the advice Gerry! Your and Ian’s input helped a lot. I was able to communicate options to the client and we are on a course of repair to change out original items for practicality. And I have your book which I use all the time. It’s wonderful!
Sincerely, Tony
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