Your Guarantee

Strategy 4: Your Guarantee
Your guarantee is a strong selling tool. It shows your customers how much you trust your product offering. Do you have a great product or service? Use a strong guarantee to tell your customers how much you believe in the products and or services you sell. Conversely, a poor or unpopular policy will chase customers away or at least offend them so that they will never shop with you again.

Examples of Great Guarantees

Neiman Marcus’s Guarantee If you are not completely satisfied with your Neiman Marcus purchase, please return it for exchange, credit, or refund.

Williams-Sonoma Guarantee We want you to be perfectly satisfied with your purchase. If for any reason a selection does not meet your expectations, please return it to us for and exchange or refund.

L. L. Bean’s Guarantee Our products are guaranteed to give 100% satisfaction in every way. Return anything purchased from us at any time if it proves otherwise. We do not want you to have anything from L. L. Bean that is not completely satisfactory. What a great lifetime warranty!

Filson Clothing’s Guarantee Our guarantee for over 100 years has never changed: "We guarantee every item purchased from us. No more, no less. Your satisfaction is the sole purpose of our transaction." —Clinton C. Filson, 1897

eBags.com Guarantee eBags.com 110% Price Guarantee appears on every page. Customers feel comfortable when buying from eBags.com, so much so that they have bought 6,322,834 Bags Since 1999.

Examples of Unpopular Guarantees
A popular online (overstock.com) retailer charges a 20% restocking fee.
An auto manufacturer charged a 25% restocking fee.
An in-home party company only gives credit for returns.

These examples produce customers that may never shop with them again because of their policies. Is it worth it to alienate customer from a lifetime of purchases? It might be, but weigh the impact carefully. If you choose to implement a guarantee such as these let your customer know up front so there is no surprise. This way your customers will be able to make an educated decision when they decide to purchase from you.