Before you start saying I’m a wanker for having a Rolex…. yes I know, I am.
In my defence it’s an old one – 1976. The salesman described it as an ‘entry level Rolex’.
There is a story with some points to apply to your business.
I bought the watch from a secondhand watch dealer. They have a 12-month guarantee – if it f*cks up within 12 months, they’ll fix it for free.
It made me more willing to splash out on an expensive watch that is nearly as old as I am (and likely to go wrong).
Point 1 – a Guarantee takes some risk out of a buying decision – people are more willing to buy.
What’s your Guarantee? And do you use it to make buying from you feel safer?
Sure enough, the watch f*cked up almost straight away. I took it to a watchmaker I knew and trusted to ask his opinion first. I hadn’t built trust with the first lot – I’d spent money and was a bit scared of being ripped off.
Third party confirmation is very reassuring
Point 2 – third party recommendations on how good you are reassure your customers.
You should be using them?
He said “It’s definitely a Rolex” (Phew) “and it’s definitely not working properly.” 😔
So I took it back to the sellers to be repaired under warranty.
They repaired it, it broke again and they repaired it again. And again.
During this time they bad-mouthed the other watchmaker. Said he’s lazy and not as good as their guy.
It broke again (I dropped it this time) but now it’s out of warranty. So I go back to my guy (who has many 5 star reviews).
He fixed it. Told me it had been repaired in a very half-arsed way previously. Was not clean inside, and a component was in upside down.
I think the other watchmaker was rushing it because he wasn’t being paid much.
My guy charged a lot to fix it ($1500)
See what’s happening here?
The guarantee was powerful. It took the risk out of the purchase and made me brave enough to splash out on a slightly scary buy.
Their shitty delivery of the guarantee destroyed some of that confidence and, once the guarantee period was over, I prefered to pay someone else (more trusted) to fix it up.
They damaged the trust by bad-mouthing the other guy and then doing a very ordinary job on the warranty repairs.
My guy did a good job – the watch has kept good time since and I love it.
The lesson for you?
- Use your guarantee to make it easier for your customers to choose you (it’s only useful if you tell people about it before they decide)
- Deliver on it properly. Don’t be a miserable, reluctant fixer of your company’s mistakes and defects. It ruins the trust forever.
It’s worth thinking about, isn’t it?
Remember, this stuff and building the systems so this works properly for your business is your job, now you’re a Businessperson not just a Tradie.
(Those pictures are my watch in pieces)