I feel a strong commitment. I analyze other industries all of the time. Not so long ago one of my favorite motel chains guaranteed guest satisfaction. If you aren't completely satisfied with your night's stay you don't have to pay. I believe that customers want to make purchases risk free. This holds true for mail order catalogs and tool manufactures. I'm sure several names have popped into your head as you mentally run through companies you do business with. Not so long ago corporate America looked at refunding money and product as a last resort to deal with unhappy customers. If the customer complained long and loud you gave him his money back to pacify him.

The auto-makers stonewalled it for so long that "Lemon Laws" were legislated by government to protect purchasers' rights. Times have changed, and I must say for the good. Now if we can only get the airlines to get on board. They still make their passengers feel hopeless and angry when Murphy's Law rears its ugly head. They are long on excuses and short on results. Some day they will unconditionally guarantee your satisfaction or you will get a complete refund of the ticket.

To err is human. We all make mistakes. I know that we mess up 2% of every order we fill. Most of it is not paying attention to detail. Repeating the order to the customer. Filling the entire order, not forgetting the soda. The list is endless. Customers expect no demand, to be taken very seriously when the order is not perfect. Every time you accomplish satisfying them you gain a little mental Brownie point. Every time you fail you lose at least ten. Society demands near perfection at every transaction.

I not only guarantee my product; I guarantee my competitors pizzas. Why not? Far-fetched you say? Let's look at the big picture. My goal is to sell pizza to every pizza eater in my market. You  gain new customers one at a time and lose them one at a time. The only exception to the rule is bad press or a food borne illness incident. My competition is human and also has an error factor similar to mine. I hope that when they do make a mistake, my market remembers my Guarantee. It goes like this.

The first year I promoted the Ultimate Pizza Guarantee I enjoyed over 300 conversions. The disclaimer of limiting one guarantee per address is a safeguard that assures you won't be taken advantage of by people who try to cash in more than once. Next to the private phone was a Rolodex. Only management and senior employees were allowed to answer it. Before we make the replacement pizza for the caller we got some basic information. We asked their name, address, phone number, size and type of pizza ordered and where they purchased it from. We put this data on a new Rolodex card. If they already had one in the file we remind them that they had already taken advantage once before. Since we only honor the guarantee once we suggest to them that they try us at our daily special price. Only a very small percentage tried to double dip us.

Currently we give away pizza to two new customers per week. I figure every new customer is worth, at a minimum, $500 in sales a year. They in turn have a life cycle of seven years and will tell all their friends. If they recommend us to only five friends, the annualized sales are amazing--$10,500 to be exact. And your investment is only three to four dollars maximum. Oh by the way, I personally deliver the pizza to the new convert whenever possible, and bring back the competitors pizza for my crew to analyze and reconfirm that they are working at the best place in town. Three days after we give them their free pizza an amazing thing happens to them--they get a hand written thank you card in the mail, along with refrigerator magnet and three Big Dave Pizza Bucks. Guess where they will be ordering their next pizza from.

If this article has not answered all of you questions and you want to discuss it further please visit my web site at www.bigdaveostrander.com and post a question. No one ever makes a bad decision in his or her life. Folks simply make brand new decisions, based on brand new information. PMQ 

Copyright © 2001 Dave Ostrander, all rights reserved.