Many of you will have heard of Flight Centre’s Lowest Airfare Guarantee. It’s central to their marketing strategy – and reinforced by their Unbeatable tag line. You may not be so familiar with The Clean Plumber – a plumbing service which guarantees to arrive on time – or their service is free. Or the inner Melbourne hairdresser who guarantees you’ll be satisfied with your new hairstyle – or they’ll redo it, or pay you to go to the competition to have it fixed. Many business owners see guarantees as something to avoid – they’re frightened to commit to a standard of service or product delivery in case the customer invokes the guarantee. By contrast, savvy businesses see their guarantee as a powerful tool to acquire and retain customers. It can add real power to your marketing message and build loyalty with your existing customers. In the customer’s mind, it lowers the risk of purchasing – and the reality is, many customers won’t invoke a guarantee, even if the service standard isn’t reached, as long as their problem is effectively solved. In five years, the hairdresser has only had her guarantee activated twice.
What are the attributes of a good guarantee?
It should be:
- Easy to understand and communicate – The Clean Plumber’s guarantee is quite specific. If they don’t arrive by the agreed appointment time, there is no charge for their service. They also guarantee to leave the work area cleaner than when they arrived – and the customer makes the call on that.
- Meaningful – it needs to address issues that are important for the customer.
- Easy to Invoke – the system needs to be simple and customers should be encouraged to use it. Their dissatisfaction shouldn’t be exacerbated by having to jump through too many hoops.
- Easy to Collect – The collection/rectification procedure should be quick, easy, and on the spot if possible.
A guarantee is not only good for the customer – it’s good for your business, because it will force you to focus on your customers, and generate useful feedback. Guarantees require you to articulate what will satisfy your customers, how to identify when something has gone wrong, and what you will do if that happens. If you choose to offer a guarantee, you’ll need to set very clear guidelines for all staff about expected service standards, failure points and how to avoid, report and rectify them. That sounds like good business sense to me, so why not get some marketing mileage by bragging about it?
