We all remember those 100% satisfaction guarantees that infomercials would use to persuade people they could trust in their products. Consumers are more aware nowadays that this is more of a trial guarantee that after a period of time will expire. That 100% guarantee usually had a limit of a few weeks or less. After that, you were stuck with the product. To be more accurate it was more of a free trial than a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If the customer isn’t happy and the return period time has ended, aren’t they still a dissatisfied customer?
We are going to talk about how to implement something that goes beyond that 100% guarantee. It may seem impossible, but I assure you it’s not. When you have complete confidence in the products that you offer and can offer a guarantee that stands above the rest on the market and surpasses everyone’s expectations, the customer will start to believe it too. Because it’s important that you sell just the right product you can be confident in, see our previous post, Finding the Right Product to Market for further information.
The Strategy
At first, the strategy may seem nuts to a business person to implement. The way it works is that you tell your customers that if a certain condition is met that you will give them a refund or make it right beyond a normal expectation. An example would be if you sell a product and later it breaks, you promise that you will refund or replace the item, even if it’s a year or two from the date of purchase.
Refunds on Service
But, don’t limit it to be only about a broken item, it can also be a usage issue. For example, if someone buys a subscription to use a particular service and then discover that they don’t use it often enough to pay for the membership fees. In this situation, you can exceed the 100% satisfaction guarantee and offer to refund the entire amount of the subscription if the customer doesn’t use the benefits of the services or products offered by the membership during that one-year time frame. Obviously, you would need to have a way of figuring that out.
When you are in a discount club you have membership costs that allow you access to discounts on other products as well. The concept is that the amount of money that you will save easily exceeds the membership sign up fees and that after using you can eventually make back your initial cost to get in the club.
Would most companies actually offer you the cost of the membership fee back if you found that the use of the club itself wasn’t worth it to you? If your membership club did do this it would set itself on a higher level by offering a safeguard that whether a member uses the membership they paid for or not, they will still be satisfied with their purchase because you have promised to go above and beyond a normal company’s guarantee. You could throw in an added little perk at the end of it like a free gift or coupon for discounts on popular items just because they tried the membership, even if it didn’t end up saving them money. People will be flocking to sign up! If you need help on how to set up a membership club, visit WishList.
You’ve heard it said many times that a person’s word is their bond. Now you know that it is also a great sales strategy!