Official Luthiers Forum!

I realize I don't post much on here but I recently had a run in that I wanted some advice on from you more experienced repairmen on here.

Customer brings in a Harmony Sovereign with some SEVERE issues (see photos below) I look at it for a few minutes and get an idea of what it would cost just to make it functional rather than pretty.


In this photo you can see the separation on the top from the side as well as the fingerboard. It went ALL the way down the side of the guitar. The neck angle was screwed up and it needed to be removed and reset, not an easy task on some of these cheaper old guitars.



In addition to the photos the bridge needed to be reset, a back brace was missing entirely and needed to be replaced, and there were several open cracks in the back and top.


At my shop I try my best to help people out but in this case the cost would far exceed the value of the guitar. They asked how much so I told them it would be around 800$ and possibly more depending on if anything else showed up once I got well into the deal.

The customer throws a fit and says he could get it all fixed for 300$ at his buddies place, takes the guitar and leaves. I have not heard from him nor do I know what happened to the guitar.

My question is, should I have even quoted him a price or just passed on the job? I know each situation is different just curious if I could've preserved the customer relationship for future work or not.

Give an itemized breakdown of the repairs and cost, and explain that it far exceeds the value of the guitar, and leave it at that. Was he expecting that your charges were going to be less than his buddy?
Some of the best jobs are the ones that walk out the door. If you deal with your customers in a polite and civilized way, and provide reasonable price and excellent work, the good ones will come back.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Welcome to the world of guitar repair. It's often the case that the cost of the repairs, done correctly.... will exceed the value of the instrument. Clients don't know what to expect and as such they rely on professional Luthiers to provide them with triage and an estimate.

We turn away work daily and at present we have turned away more guitars this year then there have been work days in 2016. We installed a counter with a pull cord because we wanted some hard data on our turn away rate.

Turning work away is a function of if that work is 1) profitable or will not present "opportunity costs" to the Luthier meaning you will lose your arse and soul on the thing and 2) what your current work load and promises look like and I will add 3) if you feel like working for the person in front of you.

How you blend these considerations and any other considerations that you may have is always up to you. For us we are busy, profitable, and do great work. For all of this to happen we do pick and choose what we work on avoiding working on jobs that from experience we know are dicey.

The term "punitive quotation" refers to purposely quoting very high in the hope that the client will take their instrument and leave. It doesn't always work though.....

In my experience the single greatest pitfall that most Luthiers face in making a go at a successful repair business in not being able to say no. Or, in other words we often hurt ourselves.

Instruments break, instruments can be made like crap and accidents happen too and none of these things need be our problem unless we let them be our problem.

One Luthier once told me that he is reluctant to turn away work because he doesn't want anyone to think that he can't do the job. That's ego talking and if unchecked will most definitely result in the Luthier having to absorb opportunity costs meaning working on something less than profitable when perhaps they could have been working on something profitable.

Would I have turned this one away - absolutely! Can the repairs be done and be done well - absolutely. In this case your client has a preconceived notion that he can get it all done for $300.... If it were me I would have suggested that he take it to his buddy and let me get back to work. I've been known to show folks our door more than once....

Now before anyone goes and thinks that I am not helpful or a grumpy old fart even though I am a grumpy old fart I am very helpful. I'm helpful to my 1,100 clients that we serviced last year and will jump through hoops for them including taking questionable things in at times. There are no hard fast rules.

I'm also very aware that I guarantee my work 100% and that means perhaps doing $1,200 work on this one and having the client believe that they can squirm out of the bill.... That's opportunity costs by the way or one form of it not to mention a failed read of a client....

My duty is to keep the lights on, do great work for the clients who I do take on, and be as helpful as I can be. This duty does not extend to anyone who presents themselves as a know it all or wants to argue right off the bat about price, etc.

The old adage the client is always right is not correct and this needs to be said. Our trade is a difficult trade to make a go at and the ones who are successful find their way and that always includes turning a blind eye to the jobs that suck and concentrating on what will keep the lights on, insurance paid, rent paid, pay the employees, and permit you to live to play another day.

It's OK to turn work away and it can be done in a helpful and civilized manner too. What's not ok is to permit others to determine if you and your business will be viable or not. That's up to you and should always be up to you.

My question for you is do YOU think that you should have turned this one away? I'de be interested in your take on this after reading mine.

Lastly a couple days does not go by where someone does not come into our shop and proclaim with great excitement "look what I WON.... on eBay...." What more often than not happens next is they are told that the cost of repairs would be X when X exceeds the value of the instrument often by multiples.....

Learning to say no is not only important it's key to survival in many types of businesses. Expectations are everything and delivering on those expectations and even exceeding them is the goal.

Sadly not all jobs are candidates for setting expectations correctly and also sadly not all clients are worth the trouble...

Hey Alex - We provide a quotation but we shy away from attempting to justify the price of the repairs for an individual. It's up to them in our view to determine if the value is there for them and NO selling is done on our part. We are Luthiers not sales people.

Why?

Because if you talk someone into something that they may be on the fence about or get them to accept a price that they balk at it's very possible that the instrument will be abandoned and no one gets anything except your business quickly becomes a dead guitar grave yard...

Letting folks walk out the door at times is not only beyond our control but a wise thing to do.

The overriding principal here at least for us is that we will never attempt to be all things to all people. Instead we will do what we do very well instead of a bunch of things.... crappy.... where "crappy" is not my first choice of words...

We have a friend who tried to be all things to all folks often intercepting business walking out the door and talking them into bringing it back in. He ended up with a terrible reputation and went out of business....

It's OK to say no.

One last thing and back to Dan. You titled your thread "cheapskate" and I did not address that, sorry.

Folks don't know what things might cost if done professionally and not in someone's basement in their spare time. Brick and mortar businesses have overhead and that has to be covered before a dime is made for anyone. We pay often big bucks for convenient locations, insurance, infrastructure to run the businesses and comply with requirements, taxes, etc. All of this is done for our clients by the way and that costs money.

In my experience likely the majority of clients to a Luthier with a general repair business may only visit a Luthier once in an entire lifetime.

Does this mean get em while we can? Heck no.... it means that most clients don't know what to expect from a Luthier visit. As such it's up to us to give them one of the very best customer satisfaction experiences of their lives or, conversely, get them the heck out of there so that you can provide this great customer service to someone who likely deserves it.

Was this client a cheapskate? Who knows but I would not be willing to find out...

Had a guy bring in a Harmony archtop once that had been floating in a flooded basement. The top and back were clapping on the ribs like castanets, and the neck joint was quite loose. The finish was gone. Claimed it was a family heirloom, and needed it restored. Quoted a very high price, and he handed it over. "You can keep the old POS"..... My apprentice later glued it back together, got it strung and playing nicely, and gave it a local childrens home.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Chris, you are absolutely correct and I do understand what you are getting at with your longer post.

Regarding should I have turned it away, personally I think yes. It was a tremendous amount of work (as you can see in the pics) and likely was not going to look great when finished. I kind of wish now that I had simply told him it's too far gone to even give him a quote.

I think my issue with this guy was that he EXPECTED it to be done for cheaper and seemed to have made his mind up about the repair before even consulting with me.

And the thread title sort of reflects my miffed posture towards this gentleman so I was wrong for labeling him as such.

Dan I completely agree with you. I just wanted it said that it's OK to turn away bad business since this is a sore spot in our industry that often bites us when we don't heed the warnings.

On occasion I will have someone, usually an eBay "flipper" balk at a quoted price and suggest something much lower. I'm known to ask them at that point "and you do how much repair work so that you know what these things should cost?"

An interesting exercise in your area would be to get quotes on the hourly rates of the local computer repair shops, auto repair shops, etc. and then compare it to your own rates. It's easy to make the case that skilled and professional Lutherie repair businesses have every bit as much risk working on instruments that at times exceed the replacement cost of a Mercedes Benz. We study for years, a lifetime in fact, and we have the same goals as other repair businesses in general.

Decent repair work will have a cost associated with it and that $300 guy in his garage is never a fair comparison.

One last thing. At times when we can't make the numbers work for someone we suggest to them that there are aspiring Luthiers out there that might take it on as a "project guitar" and spend the time on it that's required without being on a clock so-to-speak. We do caution folks that you may get more or less.... than you paid for but it's an option at times.

Recently I had a customer ask why a fret leveling didn't also include a setup, all for the same cost. I told him that it is for the same reason that his dentist doesn't fill a cavity along with cleaning his teeth, all for the same cost. I get really tired of answering that one, which I get all the time. I've started telling customers up front that any fret work needed is not included in the setup costs.

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It will probably be alright.

Happens all the time, especially with folks who read too much on Internet forums. That's why I START any talk of neck angle with exactly what neck resetting means in our shop. Most of the time it means removing, changing angle, reattaching, touchup if needed, fingerboard leveling, full refretting, new saddle. THEN, when I hit the owner with a repair charge three times what he's read on the Forum, I have some basis for discussion.

Yesterday I had a fellow with an Irish harp that was repairable, but pulling itself apart. After discussing exactly what is meant by "blank check," he agreed it was as good a sentimental piece in its unfixed condition.

Every so often sentimentality trumps (please note lowercase) all thoughts of money and a blank check is the right way to go. When I do get a truly unlimited budget to do a restoration, the job always pays less hourly, but the reward in being able to do it my way is worth the price of admission. Doing a superb 1881 Cole's Eclipse banjo that way this year.

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Cheers,

Frank Ford

FRETS.COM
HomeShopTech
FRETS.NET

There used to be a TV ad I enjoyed that featured a new chain hair styling place opening across the street from an old fashioned barber shop. It advertised $6 haircuts. The old fashioned place put up a sign that read: "We fix $6 haircuts". I wish bad guitar repairs were as obvious as bad haircuts.

Working in Learjet Customer Support Engineering for over 3 decades, I've been to all of the classes about how to listen to and deal with customers. And if you think your guy with the <$500 guitar gets pis**y about repair costs, wait until you have a customer who spent $10M on a private jet to impress his friends without checking on how much it costs to maintain that beast. All of the classes tell you that there are simply customers who can't be sucessfully dealt with, and there are a few who should be told to go somewhere else. All of the mail order companies have lists of customers they won't accept an order from.

I grew up watching my dad try to run an appliance repair business and be nice and accomodating to his customers. In the end, he couldn't make a go of it and wound up working for an equipment manufacturer so he could feed and dress us. If he'd learned to say "no" more often, he probably could have gotten along reasonably well.

Understand this is coming from a guy who encouraged a friend to buy a $300 (retail) banjo, that had been decapitated, for $100 and offered to fix it for him garatis, to gain the experience. Live and learn....

Allen thanks for that - you understand what I was trying to convey here.

Since there are no quantifiable measures for the public as to the chops of a specific Luthier AND because anyone can hang out a shingle and begin destroying other people's valuable personal property the quality of the work available out here can vary incredibly.

With this said some folks believe that they can get things done on the cheap and that's fine if they simply don't know. But when presented with a quality argument why cheap is not always good in terms of repair work... and if they still want to go the bottom feeder repair route that's not work that we are willing to do. I also have to say that if budget is the problem and the client does recognize quality work and appreciates same as well we may work with them. It's not uncommon for us to be pretty loose with discounts sometimes because it's a day of the week and we will call it for example the Tuesday discount. We also do charity work as well as simple things on the spot with no charge.

Had in interesting conversation with a client who called up and wanted me to use his 30 year old leveling stone that spans 5 frets only and wanted us to do the work while he waited on his $75K D'Aqqisto's he was shocked when I declined and let him know that this method was unsound and we won't do it. He was further shocked that payment was not a consideration at all for us - our name and doing quality work AND providing the most value to the client were always the goal. In this case the "appropriate for the instrument" thing was very much in play. Very valuable, rare, quality guitar is not where one cuts corners if one cuts corners even at all ever.

The client got pissed, called Elderly instruments and was told by them that they would not do what he wanted either and they even used the same term that I did, unsound practice.... he came back to us, tail between his legs and authorized us to level his frets our way. So we did. This is a guy who I like a great deal and he brings an ex-Navy Seal with him when carrying these guitars through town. He's an older dude and used to play with Joe Pass and he's very much a professional player with tremendous talent. Both of them have become friends and very loyal clients and it all started with an argument....

The customer is not always right and if their assumptions are going to hurt them in the long run we do try to steer them in the right direction. Not everyone though is going to appreciate the concern for doing things right and not necessarily on the cheap. That's fine too and we encourage them to go elsewhere.

We once participated in a thread here on the OLF where the answer to the OP's question as offered by many OLFers was never let anyone else tell you how to do your job. To me this also includes getting talked into to something that I just know will suck later and I will be sorry.

Saying no is one way to live to play another day at times and very useful when appropriate.

That's weird, I once a similar incident where a customer wanted to come into my shop, use my fret levels, and not pay me for it. He said it was "bad business" that I DIDN'T let him do what he wanted.

Thanks for all the advice guys, it is appreciated

You did fine. Main thing is to talk politely and give a friendly impression. His friend might make it play fine for $300 bucks, but the craftsmanship will look pretty poor.... Every time he looks at it he'll remember you and think good thoughts about you and your honesty, maybe even tell his friends to go see you.
I've got a sovereign apart right now, the "dovetail joint" is absurd. I have no idea how they got so much hide glue in there, because the wood just does not fit at all.