How much do you value a guarantee?
Mike (1 of our drivers) has gone on holiday to Vietnam. Lucky sod, I’d love to go to Vietnam. But with 3 kids to bring up and fund, I can’t see it happening this side of 2030.
Which means (as the spare) I’ve had to jump in the van this week and do Mike’s deliveries…
Today I made a delivery to Andrew & Nina at Canterbury Street Motors in Blackburn. Andrew recently helped us out with a DPF issue (read about it here) we had on 1 of our vans. And we got taking about how the quality of diesel engines has dramatically declined since they have been adapted to cope with the new emission regulations.
Andrew said. “Take that Range-Rover Evoke over there. It’s 3 years old & only done 30,000 miles. It’s engine has blown up”. Andrew carried on. “My customer is spitting feathers. Land-Rover don’t want to know as it’s 3 months out of their guarantee period & it’s going to cost £7,000 to replace it”.
“Wow”. I said. “Hows that happened then”?
“Nothing the customer has done”. Said Andrew. “The engines that Land-Rover use in these Evokes are made by Peugeot, and are cheap rubbish. It’s a £50,000 vehicle yet (in my opinion) they kit it out with cheap substandard major parts. And then you end up with situations like this. And Land-Rover don’t want to know as it’s just outside their guarantee period”.
I’m astounded on 2 fronts. First. Land-Rover choose to use cheap sub-standard engines in what I would consider an expensive high-end vehicle. Second. Land-Rover will not honor their guarantee 3 months past it’s date, in the knowledge that the vehicle has only done a very modest 30,000 miles.
Gone are the days when you would expect a diesel engine to run for 2 or even 300,000 miles. But blowing up after just 30,000 miles just isn’t right. And you can bet your last pound this customer won’t be buying another Land-Rover. And not because they are fitting Peugeot engines. Because they’ve put profits ahead of customer satisfaction. Which (if these practices continue) will ultimately affect their long-term reputation and ability to sell lots more new vehicles.
For us a guarantee is super important. Our guarantees provide our customers with certainty and the peace of mind that everything is covered. And we don’t just guarantee the product. Brother Epson or Canon (etc) do that for a year. We guarantee the whole service (including hardware) for our entire agreement period.
If you bought a vehicle from Land-Rover, Ford, Audi or BMW (etc). And after the initial 3 year guarantee is up. Would you still pay them to service it if they promised to fix it for free if anything went wrong? Course you would.
Well that’s exactly what we do. Every customer who signs up to any 1 of our printing solutions has a service guarantee for it’s life. Not just the 12 months guarantee provided by the manufacturer. For as long as you require the service, 2, 3, 5 or more years.
And we even go a step further. The initial price you agree for the service will never increase too, for as long as you require the service. Guaranteed.
The right guarantees make you different. The right guarantees make you stand out in a crowded market. But if you do provide a guarantee you have to be willing to deliver against it each and every time.
