Haze Appointment Update
UPDATE: I’ve moved appointment booking to a straightforward waiting list system.
Nobody likes waiting lists but it’s fairest. The muddled mess I describe below (and in the post before it) was mainly me trying to avoid telling people they’d have to wait by telling people that, if they were really lucky, they might not have to wait but everyone else would have to wait even longer. It was a stupid idea. I’m sorry for it. I’m leaving this post here for history and context. but it’s not obsolete.
Ok. So, yesterday was a little wild and so I feel like I need to say something to address the appointment situation here at Haze Guitars.
Last September, I booked out to the end of the year within five days of opening appointments. Yesterday morning, I booked out five weeks of appointments in a couple of hours.
I don’t know what’s happened to cause this crazy level of extra demand. Yes, my appointment list has been growing and growing over time but it's ballooned wildly in the last year or so. Full disclosure: I had to slightly reduce my working time for personal reasons but that’s nowhere near enough to account for the change I’ve seen in demand.
At first glance this seems awesome. Woohoo! I'm the Bruce Springsteen of guitar repair. Sell-out shows! Hurrah! The phrase everyone uses is ‘good complaint’ and, while that’s fair from a certain perspective, if I’m being honest, this is the most stressed I’ve been about work for a very long time. I don’t like having to make people wait like this.
As I mentioned, I'm trying out shorter 'open-periods' for accepting appointments. My thinking for shorter periods is this: Last September it was a scramble/lottery to get an appointment and I had to turn people away for three months. This time, it was also a scramble/lottery but at least there’s another chance on a shorter time-scale.
The truth is, I don’t really know the best way to handle this (best for me and for customers). I’m not even certain there is a good way to handle it. It’s more than a little overwhelming (on a personal level as well as professional). I’m trying this for a while and will see how it goes. It feels like the least-bad method but I genuinely don’t know. I’m open to ideas if you have thoughts. Feel free to email me at gerry@hazeguitars.com.
So. That's a lot of soul-bearing there. I feel like it's only fair to discuss this, though. Yes, this falls very much into the high-end of First World Problems but I really hate telling someone that I don’t know when they’ll be able to get a guitar to me. More people want to see me than I can easily accommodate. It’s both flattering and overwhelming and I’m trying to figure out the best way to deal with it.
People are being really understanding (at least to my face 🙂) and I'm incredibly grateful for everyone's patience.
I don't know how this will pan out but I'll do my best. I hope you can bear with me.
Thank you.
Gerry
P.S. You can also see the post I wrote outlining my thoughts on appointments before I reopened my schedule this time. If you want a bit (a lot) more context.