Consider offering guarantees

If you put yourself in the position of a customer for a moment – this will help you to recognise a good method of encouraging your own business customers to purchase from, especially for new customers for their first time!

You must have a favourite shop where you buy your clothes from in the high street or even on the Internet these days…and I would take a bet that one of your reasons for buying from this company, aside from the quality of the product etc. is for their returns policy.

This is their guarantee to you that if you are not totally satisfied with the item supplied, then you may return the item to the store. A good example of a company that does this kind of returns policy very well is Ikea, as they have a returns policy of 90-days, which is much higher than most and look at how successful this company is.

A guarantee works in the same way as this and can be as bold to say that…”if you are not totally satisfied with our product or service then you will not pay a single penny!” You might cringe at the thought of offering such a bold guarantee, but potential customers will certainly think long and hard about such a bold statement…they will think that you, as a company, must be so confident about your service or about your products to provide such a confident statement.

If your business does not already have some kind of guarantee then you should definitely consider introducing such a scheme…examples of guarantees:

– If you do not like our XYZ product or if you change your mind, bring it back in new condition and we will give you a full refund…no questions asked.

– If I do not show up within half an hour of our agreed meeting time you will not have to pay.

– If your delivery is not made on the next day we will pay you the price of your goods ordered plus £100.

I am sure that you will be able to make some of these up for yourself…the more outrageous the guarantee the more likely you will beat what the competition is doing and therefore stand out from the crowd!

P.s. If you work on the premise that the majority of people are honest your guarantee policy will only serve your business in a positive way thereby attracting customers andmore business, rather than to make you a loss…of course this is subject to your company delivering  a quality product and on time.