“Satisfaction Guaranteed” is a phrase salespeople often toss around casually to entice would-be customers, but what does it look like in practice? Those who know the value of a good service guarantee also understand its importance. In today’s world, social media allows users to share any firsthand accounts of service — good or bad — with the potential to reach massive online audiences. A good warranty or guarantee can help ensure brand loyalty, boost invaluable word-of-mouth advertising, and ultimately demonstrate to customers that your product is one clients and prospective customers can trust. However, that’s only the case if those behind the guarantee are willing to back it up with action and service. Manufacturing repair guarantees are no different.
A promise you can stand behind
What makes a good basic guarantee? According to a classic Harvard Business Review article, a meaningful guarantee has five conditions.
- Unconditional — A good guarantee makes no exceptions for anything within the company’s control. If the service doesn’t meet customer expectations for any reason outlined, the company is responsible for meeting guarantee terms.
- Easy to understand and communicate — A guarantee is no good at providing customer assurance if the customer cannot understand it. Therefore, a good guarantee uses specific, precise language so customers can measure what they should expect.
- Meaningful — A good guarantee highlights what customers value in the service and addresses those values.
- Easy to invoke — Customers should not feel overwhelmed when they request the company honor the guarantee both parties agreed to.
- Quick to collect — After requesting the company come through on the guarantee, users shouldn’t have to do any extra work to receive what the company promised.
The second and fourth conditions point out that the benefits of a guarantee go beyond customers. A clearly written guarantee is easy for customers to invoke and makes training and expectations easier for front-end company employees as well. As Michael McCullough explains in his research paper on service guarantees, “Consumers by virtue of the guarantee know what to expect and the internal training and systems necessary to support the guarantee guide the service provider in providing redress.”
Case study: A manufacturing repair guarantee in practice
At Global Electronic Services, we back up our work with a guarantee because we take pride in what we do and want our customers to know they can depend on us. We back all our work with an 18-month in-service warranty, so customers can rest assured their manufacturing repairs will last. In addition, we offer free evaluations on all potential manufacturing repairs with clear time guidelines for when repaired items will be returned. In fact, our standard turnaround time is five days or less and we accept rush orders on a one- to two-day turnaround time frame at no extra charge. Plus, you can call our technicians any time, 24/7, and we can come to you for on-site repairs — we can even take care of your emergency manufacturing repairs on your time so you don’t have to wait.
At Global Electronic Services, we take the value of a guarantee seriously. We make our policies both transparent and easy to follow. By backing up our work with a service guarantee, we demonstrate that we understand how important manufacturing repairs are to you, our customers who depend on them.