My New Guarantee: Satisfaction or Your Detail Is Free

M

MaksimumAuto

New member
Theory: Use the guarantee as an incentive for potential customers to choose my business over the competition.



Risk: Wasted time, supplies, and effort.



Benefit: More clients, more profit, and more long term gain from more networking.



Summary: The "Your satisfaction or your detail is free guarantee" will be tested for about a month in this slow period of the year.



Best Case Scenario: The $$ lost by unsatisfied/lying customers will be minimal to the $$$ increased profit from previous months. Leaving my competition in the dust.



Worst Case Scenario: Waste a lot of time..and remove the guarantee.





And....discuss.
 
I would say satisfaction guarantee, if you're not happy, we'll make it right, and if we can't fix it, your detail is free.



I personally would not do this because if you're slow during the winter, it's probably not because people are going elsewhere, they probably just prefer to not spend money on their car detailing it when it's probably going to rain the next day.







John
 
See that "we'll make it right" guarantee isn't anything new. Everybody uses that and so did I. It's an old caveman business practice.



This serves as a promotion and a guarantee. It's intended to boost profits, not secure a guarantee. It serves as a two-fold.
 
In the school of Economics, satisfaction guarantee has been proven ineffective in the service providing sector. It works on tangible items when there are terms and conditions. However, services are intangible, and moral hazard is a problem. In layman's terms, how would a customer judge satisfaction on the service you've performed? You may have done a hell of a good job, but the customer may still claimed to be unsatisfied.



I read of a guy who details cars for his neighbours for a living. He allows his customers or clients to pay him a few weeks after the detail job is performed. One of his customers refuses to pay him because a month later the client found another local detail shop that performs the same job cheaper and quicker.
 
How is satisfaction judged? What if someone says "I'm not satisfied, I'm not paying" without giving any reason why? You won't be able to call anyone out on it, and some shady people who wouldn't get their cars done otherwise might try to take advantage.



edit: the_invisible beat me to it.
 
You guys seem to be missing the point. Of course I'll loose some money by people being unsatisfied. Yet if planned, I'll be making more profit by the increased number of clients using our services.



And before the detail, there will be a very thorough outline of what the car will look like after the detail. If something can't come out fully, it'll be stated just in case. The client will sign the document.
 
MaksimumAuto said:
Best Case Scenario: The $$ lost by unsatisfied/lying customers will be minimal to the $$$ increased profit from previous months. Leaving my competition in the dust.
Click to expand...



This theory might be wishful thinking. Do you really think customers will be flocking just because of this? Shouldn't a satisfaction guarantee be a part of running a successful business regardless? Do you think you're leaving money on the table by not advertising this? You're loosing more profit'income by not implementing this philosophy into your SOP. If you're not guaranteeing satisfaction and giving satisfaction to every customer now chances are you're loosing income/profit already. :think2
 
MaksimumAuto said:
You guys seem to be missing the point. Of course I'll loose some money by people being unsatisfied. Yet if planned, I'll be making more profit by the increased number of clients using our services.



And before the detail, there will be a very thorough outline of what the car will look like after the detail. If something can't come out fully, it'll be stated just in case. The client will sign the document.
Click to expand...



I absolutely understand what you mean.



However, do you have the economies of scale that allows you to offer a satisfaction guarantee? Are you detailing enough cars in a given time frame, such that you could forgo $200-600 (for instance) of wage without affecting your overall income? Have you noticed that the home-based specialty shops just down the corner usually don't have a refund policy? It is usually larger retail stores that offer some sort of refund policy. Why? Economies of Scale.



In the end, you are performing more jobs at the risk of not getting paid for one or two jobs you've performed. If you believe that you will benefit more from this marketing strategy, then by all means, give it a try. :xyxthumbs You'll never know if it works until you've tried it.



Also, whether this marketing strategy works depends on the type of target customers you are offering your services to.



Share your findings and let others benefit from it.
 
In marketing, its called risk reversal, the customer has no risk, so they are inclined to do business with you. I don't see any real problem with it, I've used the "free" marketing tool in many advertisements in other business's I have had. However, I could back it up and nobody ever asked me for a refund. From my experience, IF you do a great job, nobody will ask you for a "free" detail. I would rather see wording like "You will be absolutely thrilled and delighted with your car or you don't owe me a dime." I will say it one more time, if you go over the car with your client prior to the job, communicating what will or maybe won't come out and you do a great job, no one will ask you for there money back.
 
100% satisfaction is always garunteed in anything you do. If you have a loud enough voice and know how to stick up for yourself. If I get a service done weather they have a garuntee or not if I'm not satisfied I'm not paying. I never pay for anything up front nor would I expect any of my clients to do so. I don't see this helping you out much really. Besides... What's the point? Are you having issues with unsatisfied customers? If so do you think putting a garuntee is going to make things better? And if your not having any issues why would their even be a need for a garuntee?
 
Go for it. You have nothing to lose except time that you'd otherwise be spending watching tv. That's all granted you have nothing else that you can invest your time in for your business.



I can see the pro's and the con's and it's obvious you do too.



I choose to tell certain clients that I guarantee that they will be satisfied(never had one complain or try to bail out on paying even then). I use that line as a piece of bait on the client who's not sure if spending more on my company that some cheap place would be best. Because you need to understand that when you actually advertise this you will be doing work for people who will say "I am not satisfied" no matter what. Plain and simple, expect it. Expect it in droves possibly. As long as you understand that that advertisement will draw those types out of the wood works, go for it!
 
David Fermani said:
This theory might be wishful thinking. Do you really think customers will be flocking just because of this? Shouldn't a satisfaction guarantee be a part of running a successful business regardless? Do you think you're leaving money on the table by not advertising this? You're loosing more profit'income by not implementing this philosophy into your SOP. If you're not guaranteeing satisfaction and giving satisfaction to every customer now chances are you're loosing income/profit already. :think2
Click to expand...





I couldn't have said it better myself... Thanks for saving me the key strokes:p
 
There is no doubt in my mind that MaksimumAuto offers good quality services to its customers. However, what he is talking about is offering a Satisfaction Guarantee or No Charge services. Guaranteeing Satisfaction is different from offering a no-charge policy against dissatisfaction.
 
Scottwax said:
Satisfaction should be assumed, it shouldn't have to be guaranteed.
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I agree!!! There is a reason you get recommended, referred, whatever to some clients friends...why give them the option to "be dissatisfied?"
 
Another thing you could consider is this:

Tax write-offs.



If someone chooses to "be dissatisfied", not all is loss if your business is a valid, registered business that could benefit from expense write-offs. This is part of marketing expense, and the CRA or your local CPA would gladly teach you how to document the procedure for the write-off.
 
I like your moxie! I think you should give it a try. I no longer do detailing as a profession, but back in the day I gave the same guarantee - though no one ever decided not to pay. You obviously know your skill will back it up, and maybe the most important point in this whole discussion is your positive attitude; whatever others may say, even if the "no pay" thing doesn't increase the number of customers, it will surley bolster your belief in the quality of your service, and give you a certain satisfaction in your customers' positive response.



Go for it!:xyxthumbs
 
Although I have stepped back from detailing this year I had a similar phrase but even more bold. "If it does not exceed your expectations there is no charge". Not once did anyone burn me (over 8 years) and it helped land some high end work that was on the teeter totter about making a decision.



As always a 30 minute talk with an owner, both to get a feel for them and to discover what they wanted/expected, was always done. Once I had a good feeling about the individual the phrase was used a a closing tool. It was not mentioned to every customer. If I had a bad gut feeling I would decline the work or take the job but not mention the guarantee. I think it can snag some work but has to be used with some common sense.
 
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