Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

Ever wonder why/when/if/how you should offer guarantees? In my real and virtual travels this weekend, I ran across yet more “satisfaction guaranteed” type claims. For example, travel sites, such as Travelocity. What they’ll really do is try to help, but almost never give refunds. Hmmm…let’s not confuse effort with results. Here’s another example - a local restaurant offers a “first bite” guarantee. If I’m not happy with my first bite, they’ll cheerfully take it off the bill. Now, I appreciate their effort, but…I have images of people arguing over the size of the bite. Why even put the signs on the table? Makes me wonder if their food is iffy, before I ever order. A good restaurant manager (and staff) should be prepared to do what’s right for the customer. Sure, they’ll get a few deadbeats, but the total return in loyalty would far exceed the occasional write-off.

Really, it’s not that hard (re the Shake Shack via Mark Hurst, via Seth Godin). (See - more viral marketing in action. I just gave you links to three interesting people, with a lot to offer re marketing and biz dev.)

Unfortunately, guarantees are usually meaningless marketing speak these days - most people don’t even believe them. So, before you offer any type of guarantee to your customers/clients - do some cost benefit analysis and make sure you can do what’s right (consistently).