While writing earlier about the process and problem of offering returns and refunds in our home businesses, I started thinking about the need to have a formal policy on guaranteeing our products or services. It seemed that for many of our home businesses, whether or not to offer a guarantee may be a big issue.
Depending on the type of business you are operating, an official “guarantee” may mean many things. It really does tie in with whether or not you offer refunds and accept returns. Will you guarantee that the customer will be “satisfied” with your products or services? This tends to be a pretty common guarantee, probably used successfully because it is pretty vague. How does one prove or disprove “satisfaction?”
Some businesses find that make a “price guarantee” helps make sales. Letting customers know that you will guarantee your prices for a certain amount of time, or honor a lower price if they are able to prove it to you—can be an important issue with customers and types of businesses where pricing is really a factor.
Another type of guarantee has to do with time. Many businesses will guarantee a product or service for a certain amount of time. This may also be called a “warranty” and you may choose to let customers or clients know that you will honor the guarantee for a month, or year or whatever.
It stands to reason that if you take the time to decide about what sort of guarantees you’ll offer in your home business that you should put your policy down in writing. This way you’ll have it available for customers and clients (either on paper, on your packaging, or on your Web site) and you’ll be able to refer to it as policy if a dispute or request for a refund/return should arise. It will likely be necessary to review your guarantee offer(s) periodically to make sure they are still relevant.
See Also: Should You Have a Written Payment Policy?