Search Results for: blog should you formally guarantee your products or services

Help and On-going Support for Your Customers and Clients

When you make a major purchase, do you at least consider purchasing the service agreement? I know that when I bought a computer a couple years ago, I wanted to know who I could call and who would help me if I ran into a problem. Depending on what time of product or service you offer, you may want to consider providing on-going help or a service agreement plan to your customers and clients. Knowing that they can access help, get advice, or that you will guide them through a glitch or problem may be important to your customers and … Continue reading →

Full Refunds? Or Subtract a Processing Fee?

Your business may be so new that you haven’t had to figure out the “refund” question yet—or you may be unsatisfied with whatever your current refund policy is and need to revisit it. For some of us, the question is simply: do we give refunds or not? But, it might also be expanded to include decisions about when and why we might give refunds, and whether or not we give a full refund or we subtract a processing fee? In the world of conference and meeting planning—where I still do some work in addition to my writing work, full refunds … Continue reading →

Do You Know the Competitors’ Prices?

Pricing can be one of the big challenges in any business. For many of us who are just starting out with our home-based businesses, this can be one of the areas where we feel the most discomfort—have we set competitive prices? Are they reasonable? Will our prospective customers pay that much? AND, once we do set our prices, we may not remember that we do need to constantly re-evaluate and make sure that our prices stay effective and competitive. A good place to start is to keep an eye on what our competitors’ prices actually are. So, how can you … Continue reading →

Are You Giving Away Too Much For Free?

Many of us give away samples, or offer free consultations or other cost-free offers to entice and motivate our clients or customers. This can be an incredibly effective way to market our products or services. But, how do we know if we are giving away too much? Perhaps we are offering things for free that are actually hurting our bottom line and we should cut back or curb our free giveaways for the benefit of our business? Of course, looking at your profit and loss statements or overall budget is one way to at least get a handle on how … Continue reading →

Should You Formally Guarantee Your Products or Services?

While writing earlier about the process and problem of offering returns and refunds in our home businesses, I started thinking about the need to have a formal policy on guaranteeing our products or services. It seemed that for many of our home businesses, whether or not to offer a guarantee may be a big issue. Depending on the type of business you are operating, an official “guarantee” may mean many things. It really does tie in with whether or not you offer refunds and accept returns. Will you guarantee that the customer will be “satisfied” with your products or services? … Continue reading →