Due to some recent travel to deal with some family stuff, I’ve had a chance to see how business is going these days in a few other places in the U.S.
Something that caught my eye over the weekend illustrates how much room there is for a coherent, attentive business in the marketplace…even in today’s economy.
Billboards
If I look, did it work? We talked about that not long ago, so let’s not rehash that…
While in Tennessee, I saw a billboard that stated a HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) company’s unique sales position (USP) and / or differentiating factor.
It was “We’ll be on time.”
If they aren’t on time, the service is free.
They didn’t advertise the quality of their service or the highly trained nature of their service people. They didn’t note that they were trained, factory-authorized repair providers for the industry’s most prevalent residential or commercial vendors.
They simply said “Unlike everyone else, we’ll be on time and if we aren’t, our work will be free.”
Seriously?
Normally, you might think this is someone making a big deal out of nothing. Or maybe they are trying to distract from the fact that they aren’t factory-authorized and factory-trained.
Is being on time really more important to consumers than being factory-authorized, factory-trained, certified, high quality and so on?
Of course it is.
Consumers don’t assume that you’re going to be on time, but they certainly assume and expect that your service people are factory-authorized and factory-trained these days. If nothing else, the level of sophistication of many products in this market demand that level of training.
One other thing you’ll notice from the conversation. No mention of price. They didn’t claim to be the cheapest either. They simply said “We’ll be on time.”
One of the biggest time-wasters foisted upon consumers these days is the “We’ll be there between 8 and 5 or noon and 5” etc. People are unwilling or UNABLE to commit an entire day to deal with a business’ inability to manage their work schedule, but they’re often given no choice.
This HVAC company has a much smaller window of “we’ll be there” than the most prevalent ones (“today”, “morning” and “afternoon”), yet they’ve still decided to accept responsibility when they mismanage their time.
Or better stated – they’ve decided that their customers’ time is actually important.
Here’s what this “crazy” guarantee does:
- It dissolves price comparisons. I’d much rather you were on time than making me cancel or reschedule a meeting that might be worth 100 or 1000 times the difference in price between you and the guy who is always late. People who are working out of an office have to take a half a day (or more) off to manage this. They don’t want to wait on you more than once.
- It forces the vendor to get better and better about managing their time, estimating their work time and delivering what they promised. If they aren’t, they’ll be late and they won’t be able to afford that for long. Result: They end up a stronger company than they were before the guarantee existed. That raises the bar even if you ignore the guarantee or don’t like the price.
But Wait, There’s More
I think this “We’ll be on time” guarantee is a very effective sales tool that speaks directly to consumers’ pet peeves, but it begs the question “How much lower can businesses lower the bar?”
I think you know the answer to that. But that’s not why we’re here.
The questions this should provoke you to ask yourself include these: Are we lowering the bar or raising it – for our customers, ourselves and our marketplace? What benefits ourselves and our clients and makes it more difficult for our competition close sales we are interested in? Which makes it easier for consumers to choose us?
What are you doing that your competition is unable or unwilling to do? Are you leading your market or simply showing up?
Finally, it should make you ask yourself what your business is really about.
Raise the bar!
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a business, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site or contact him via email at mriffey at flatheadbeacon.com.