Keeping Customers Happy: Only Make Promises You Can Keep

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By Audacy

When pitching to potential clients, it can be tempting to start making promises and guarantees to your prospects. After all, your aim is to make the sale, and being agreeable to a prospect's terms can make your company seem more desirable. However, if you start making promises that your company can't back up, it can make the customer feel let down or lied to, which hurts the business in the long run.

 

Guarantees can build confidence

If you're confident in your product or service, making a guarantee to your prospect can build confidence for them as well. However, make sure you can deliver on the guarantee. If your company promises money-back for dissatisfied customers, don't make it impossible for customers to get a refund. Leann Anderson of Entrepreneur.com, details how small business owners can be at an advantage when offering guarantees. "Small businesses can actually make good on their guarantees more effectively because they can act more quickly, customizing their responses and controlling the quality of their products or services," she says.

 

Guarantees can improve employee performance

Before offering anything to customers, product and service guarantees should be developed in-house. Your business should determine its guarantee and how it will be enforced before any promises are offered, and use the guarantee to improve service delivery. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, "If designed and implemented properly, it enables you to get control over your organization — with clear goals and an information network that gives you the data you need to improve performance."

 

Honoring a guarantee helps build customer loyalty

Excellent service delivery helps to bring customers and keep them, but how your business handles a service or product failure can help or harm your business. When you are willing to back your guarantee and fix a service error, you can build confidence with existing customers. This confidence will help your sales staff when making pitches. Examples of how your company handles a service failure can also be used to answer questions during the sales pitch.

 

Making promises that you can keep during your sales pitch helps build your credibility and the confidence of potential clients. Make sure that your guarantee is realistic and clearly communicated. By doing so, it can help to increase your chances of closing sales.

 

This article was written by Alaina Brandenburger for Small Business Pulse