Should You Offer a Guarantee?
Clients often ask me, “Should I offer a guarantee?”
The answer varies.
A guarantee shows faith in yourself, abilities, products and services and puts your prospects at ease – giving them no reason NOT to buy or work with you. After all, if you don’t stand behind your product or service 100%, why are you in business? This is especially true if you’re selling products via the Internet.
So before you decide which way to go, let’s weigh the odds and explore the types of guarantees you can provide:
The Pro’s
Prospects visiting your website don’t always have the opportunity to meet you in person and see if you’re legit. Therefore it’s your job to win them over and instil complete confidence in them purchasing from you. Offering a guarantee can easily achieve this as well as increase your sales.
However offering a guarantee can also pose these potential threats:
The Con’s
With consulting and other service-based businesses, it can be difficult to guarantee your work – especially if your clients’ cooperation is required to ensure results.
Some clients may also attempt to capitalize on your generosity. For example, it’s not unusual for book authors to have their online books and E-zines purchased and downloaded by select readers requesting a refund 2 minutes later. Obviously they just want to get the information without paying for it.
Never the less the amount of sales you stand to GAIN from offering a guarantee dramatically exceeds those you could lose.
Types of Guarantees You Can Offer
Here are some of the types of guarantees you can provide:
Money Back or Satisfaction
You promise your customer a full-refund if your product or service does not work or they’re not happy with it. No questions asked.
Price-Protection
You lock in your price forever, with services or memberships that are billed on a recurring basis. Or you guarantee you’ll honour the lowest price anywhere for your particular product or service.
On-Time
If your clients are concerned about getting your service or product on time, this is ideal for you.
Other factors to consider:
Should You Make Your Offer Easy, or Hard to Claim?
Some business owners make their customers jump through hoops to get their money back. While you don’t want to make it TOO easy to get an instant refund, if you make it really hard, your customers may skip dealing with you directly and turn to their credit card company for a “chargeback”.
This can reflect negatively on your vendor merchant account standing and result in penalty fees. So make your refund process easy for your clients and avoid “chargeback’s.”
Should There Be a Time Limit?
Setting a time limit such as 30, 60 or 90 days, a year, or a lifetime is up to you. However studies show the longer the guarantee, the less returns. Customers are more likely to mark their calendar regarding a shorter guarantee. When the guarantee is extended, they feel less pressure and tend to forget about it.
How Should You Word Your Guarantee?
There are several ways to word guarantees. To get started, do an online search, consult SELF COUNSEL materials available in Staples, Grand & Toy or Business Depot or look at the standards used in your industry.
To your success!
PS…Oh and leave a message below. Tell me how you deal with guarantees. Have you tried different methods? Which ones work best for you? And be sure to tweet it if you found this post helpful.
