101 Best Sales and Marketing Ideas
IDEA 53:
GUARANTEE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN
Any purchase puts the customer in the position of taking a risk. This is very clear with anything mechanical – the customer wonders whether it will go wrong, and if it does how things will be handled and what it will cost in time and money. Given that customers have this worry; can you take advantage of it?
Idea
From the motor manufacturer Hyundai…
Cars are certainly a product for which people worry about reliability. A failed car can not only cost you time and money, it can leave you stranded, risking other things like your reputation at work, or ability to visit someone in hospital. So customers want a guarantee. Over the years the length of the guarantees offered has increased – a year, two years, more – and they do provide confidence and make a sale more likely.
As I write this, Hyundai is offering a full five-year guarantee, and certain aspects of the car are covered for longer than that. Given that this is not the most famous make of car, I suspect that this must help sales success significantly, not just because of the length of coverage but also because of what it implies about Hyundai’s confidence in its products, and how it compares with some larger and better-known manufacturers. Five years is longer than many people keep a car, so the guarantee is likely to impress.
This is part of the risk-reversal process referred to else-where. The device is here being used as a major sales aid by making the time covered by the warranty extra-long perhaps unexpectedly long.
In practice
- There is a principle here that can be used in many businesses where, because of their nature, customers worry about reliability and the consequence of something causing problems.