The Art of Scheduling Maintenance

Quimby Pipe Organs Maintenance

When scheduling a tuning and maintenance visit, it sometimes takes a while for it to occur; so, we thought we would enlighten you with an explanation of the process of scheduling your tuning and maintenance service visit.

Michael Quimby has always taken pride in maintaining a reasonable price for the cost of tuning and maintaining pipe organs. The reason this is so important to him is not only because he wants to do this for his clients, but, also, because he is fully aware of the budget concerns within many congregations and organizations. Being the organist for the First United Methodist Church in Warrensburg, Mo., and being a past Chairman of the Administrative Board has made him aware of the necessity for being a responsible steward of the membership’s tithes and offerings. 

At this point in time, Quimby Pipe Organs, Inc. currently maintains 155 pipe organs. We visit some of these clients on an annual basis, and tune others in the spring and the fall as well as for special occasions such as Easter and Advent seasons. In order to maintain costs, Michael tries to group together clients that are in the same geographical area. For instance, when we visit the St. Louis area, there are many, many other areas that we try to maintain at the same time, and then pick up others on the return trip to Warrensburg. Sometimes he will schedule a trip like this over a period of three or four days. Scheduling the tuning this way significantly reduces the cost of a maintenance visit because the travel time, the lodging expenses, and the meal expenses for the two people who are making this trip can be shared by all of the clients that are visited on this particular trip. If Michael were to charge each individual customer the full price for travel, lodging, and meals each time we went to maintain their pipe organ, the cost to the customer would escalate rather quickly. Our service contract quotations take all of these facts into consideration.

This also brings to mind the importance of having the temperature of the church set to temperature as it is during a service. When you are scheduled to have a maintenance visit, and are grouped with several other clients, when the technician arrives and the temperature is not set correctly, he cannot tune the pipe organ and will move on to the next client. Because the temperature was not correct, you may not get a return trip to your area for quite a number of days/weeks or even months. So, please, when the administrative assistant calls to schedule your maintenance visit, make a note to have the temperature set to the same as it is during a service so that you are not skipped in the tuning schedule. They will usually call again, the day before the maintenance visit is scheduled, to remind you to set the temperature as it is during a service.

The same scenario takes place when a customer calls with an emergency. We attempt to have someone who is working in the vicinity of the emergency call go by there on his scheduled trip. If we cannot do this, the emergency-call customer will have to pay the entire cost of the emergency visit which, again, would entail travel time, lodging, and meals. This cost can become extremely expensive when we cannot link more than one destination together. Each time we receive a call, we try to determine if the emergency is indeed an emergency or if it can possibly wait until someone is going their way in order to save them the additional expense. We try our best to satisfy all emergency situations as quickly as possible.

We hope this gives you a better understanding of what our goal is when it comes to servicing your pipe organ. We are also looking out for your best interests and making every attempt to get it done in a timely manner. We thank all of our clients, once again, for their patronage this past year and we look forward to continuing our relationship with you into the future.

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