A powerful guarantee can work wonders for your business, both in your marketing and when it comes to making sales. It is attention grabbing when used in marketing, and can get people, who weren’t going to consider you, through the door to check you out. Once they’re through that door, the guarantee helps break down barriers towards making the decision to buy from you. The aim of a guarantee is to reduce the risk for the person buying from you, so they feel they have less to lose by coming to you. A good guarantee is therefore one that is easily communicated and understood, as well as one that addresses the perceived risks there are from buying from your industry. Creating a powerful guarantee is simple, and here’s how to do it.
1. What are people’s fears and perceived risks of dealing with your industry?
This isn’t about your business, but about the industry you’re in. What are the reasons people may be reluctant to buy from you or your competitors? If you run a dry-cleaning business, one of people’s worries may be that you won’t be able to remove a strain, and that they will have paid without getting a result. Another fear may be that you damage or lose pieces of clothing that are valuable to them. Your guarantee should address one or more of these fears, in order to reduce the risk people perceive from doing business with you.
2. Link it to what makes you different than the rest
Now think of your competitors and see whether they offer any guarantees. Your guarantee should be different from theirs, and it can and should be closely linked to what makes your business unique and different, also known as the Unique Selling Proposition (USP). If your business is unique because it offers second to none customer service, a satisfaction guarantee is a good place to start. If your USP is related to price, a guarantee of price matching is more relevant. The USP of our dry cleaners it that they offer the best customer service in town, so their guarantee might be “Satisfaction guaranteed – or your next shopping trip is on us!”. The fine print of the guarantee would specify that if clothes came back damaged, if a stain could not be removed, or if clothing was lost, our dry cleaners would give the customer a voucher of £50 to a local clothes shop.
3. Shout it from the rooftops
Once you have chosen your guarantee, shout it from the rooftops! Include it in all your marketing communications and make sure everyone who deals with you knows about it. Your guarantee is an effective marketing tool, so use it! It is also a powerful sales tool, when converting an enquiry in to a sale. Everyone should know that doing business with you is virtually risk-free and they have nothing to lose. When people see the confidence you have in your own ability to deliver, they will feel more confident about you and your business.
What if people take advantage of it?
What would you do if a customer approached you and had a genuine complaint about their delivery? Chances are you would go out of your way to fix it, because we all want satisfied customers who will tell their friends about us. If you are still worried, think back to the number of complaints you have had in the last year. How many have there been? What would the guarantee have cost you last year? And how many new customers would the guarantee need to bring you in order for the guarantee to break even?
A common worry related to implementing a guarantee is that people will take advantage of it, simply buying something they can’t afford, use it and then return within the guarantee period to get their money back. There are people around, who will try to do this, so cater for this in your guarantee and make it difficult to take advantage of. What does this mean? If you use a “30 day satisfaction guarantee”, put down as one of the conditions that people don’t get their money back but can choose a different product from your range. Make a return conditional upon filling out a feedback questionnaire and ask them very specifically what they are dissatisfied with. Time wasters will tend to back away when asked to get specific, but if they don’t, honour your guarantee and write it off as the small cost you’ve paid to boost your conversion rate and bring in new business, which is what your guarantee should bring you.
