Many businesses are now making promises and commitments – in the form of “guarantees” – to underpin their brand reputation and product offering.

At Bold Clarity, we offer a guarantee that if you don’t get value from a session we facilitate with you and your leadership team, then you don’t pay us. This monetary value helps to make sure we deliver what we say we will and takes away the risk of our clients using us.

Many of our clients have seen the value and offer one too.

For example, at Welcome Gate, if clients are not happy after one month of having a Welcome Gate system installed they will remove it for free & donate £250 to a charity that supports UN Global Goal 16: Peace and Justice, Strong Institutions.

How could offering a guarantee benefit your business?  

Why are guarantees important?

Nowadays, everyone is able to compare, share, research and comment on products and services they buy.

By offering a guarantee, it shows you stand behind the product and/or service you are offering. It builds credibility, reliability and demonstrates your confidence.  It makes it easy for your target market to buy from you.

The impact of guarantees

By issuing a statement “guaranteeing” an element of your selling proposition, you help to build your brand identity.

From the customer’s point of view, you take away the risk. This is particularly true if your guarantee applies “try us and see”, as customers feel emboldened to make purchases knowing their satisfaction will be important.

Guarantees become a form of contract, removing friction in lead conversion and making purchases feel more assured, yet less binding.

Examples of companies offering a guarantee

• Retailer John Lewis guarantees that if you find items cheaper in a rival high street store, they will refund the difference. It’s an excellent example of how offering a guarantee can make it compelling to buy from them.
• Budget hotel chain Premier Inn offers you your money back if you don’t get a good night’s sleep. It encapsulates the brand’s commitment to comfortable beds and pleasant rooms.
• Co-working space Central Working guarantee that they will provide a meaningful connection in first 30 days of your membership or the founder will get there first month’s membership back.
• Some guarantees are tied to emotional rewards, rather than cash, such as office product company United UK’s commitment to donate to charity, if clients don’t make like-for-like savings of at least 20% in 20 days.
• Tech firm Blackbox promotes a software system that carries a guarantee to provide you with three workable solutions or you don’t pay.

Case study: Why we created a guarantee

Guidelines for creating guarantees

Guarantees come in many forms, the most effective is some kind of no charge or money back. Others, such as Welcome Gate, offer to rectify situations with prompt and decisive actions.

Creating and formulating this type of commitment requires thought: any guarantee must be deliverable and financially feasible.

An example of one which wasn’t is Hoover’s marketing disaster of 1992. The company promised free airline tickets – which turned out to cost them £600 each – for every £100 item they sold.

This reinforces the point that wording and terms and conditions on guarantees must be formulated carefully, leaving as little potential for customer abuse as possible.

Contact me to discuss how whether offering a guarantee might work for your business, by ringing +44 (0)7795 667480.

Image: RawPixels