How To Minimize Prospect Risk with a Service Guarantee | Customer Experience Excellence Training

At the moment of making a decision to hire you, many would-be clients balk. At the last minute, the decision process focuses on risk. “What are we risking to make this change,” the CEO asks. Prospects fear change. The perceived risk of changing is often worse than staying with the known problems with their incumbent professional firm. I have witnessed many companies go out for bids, and then keep the same firm they are unhappy with.

How can you minimize fear and close the sale? By improving on the use of a tool you already have—the service guarantee.

Give a Guarantee Now!

Most advisors essentially give a guarantee now without reaping the benefits. Will you appease a complaining client? If your client is unhappy about his bill or your service, will you modify the bill or rework the service? If you stand behind your work, you are giving a service guarantee. But you are giving it after the fact, not at a time when it will help you.

You’re missing a powerful marketing and practice aid when you use guarantees after the fact, rather than up front. Many professionals balk at the idea of giving a guarantee. Yet the word guarantee is one of the 12 most powerful in the English language, according to linguist Dorothy Leeds. When you guaran- tee satisfaction, you remove the risk inherent in the transaction. And you employ an attractive marketing tool at a point in the business transaction when it can get you the client.

Use Guarantees to Your Advantage

Bruce Horovitz, writing in USA Today, said, “There’s one marketing tactic that’s all but guaranteed to work every time: a guarantee.” In practice I have found that a service guarantee goes beyond mere words. When you communicate that you have a service guarantee, you and your staff approach your work differently. Work is done with more care when everyone knows the work is guaranteed and that the client is the sole judge of its value.

A major law firm advertised their guarantee in the Wall Street Journal. Partners attribute much of their firm’s growth to the guarantee.

You’re Not at Big Risk

Naturally, there are some caveats to implementing a service guarantee. No one can guarantee a result. If you have an unreasonable client or two, don’t offer it to them. You may want to implement a service guarantee over a period of three years, and you should phrase a written guarantee carefully.

Conclusion

Advisory, accounting, and law firms are using guarantees more. Some of the big companies has used one for over 10 years, guaranteeing satisfaction with everything we do. And we have made good on the guarantee twice during that time. I hope you will consider it in your future marketing plans.