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Weeks after Everest’s 46 year guarantee offer ended, they are now going one silly step further and offering lifetime guarantees for those that sign up with them throughout June (though I’m sure there will be many terms and conditions attached to it so that they can get out of most of the responsibilities).
To be fair to Everest, they aren’t the only ones who have lengthened their guarantees in order to win more business. But what I cannot understand, in an industry being crippled by thin margins becoming thinner all the time, low consumer confidence and rife-undercutting, why would companies put yet more long-term financial pressures on themselves buy offering unrealistically long guarantees?
Pretty much all of us agree that the current ten year guarantees are too long, especially when you compare them to other big ticket items such as cars. Surely there’s some other, more practical way of winning new business? Like selling the benefits of your product, promoting good long company history? To be completely honest, very little business is won on lengths of guarantees. I can’t think of a contract that I lost because the customer told me that another company’s guarantee was a few years longer.
On a lighter note, I hope everyone enjoyed their Bank Holiday weekend! I spent way more than I should, probably drank way more than I should, and was generally about as unproductive as possible…but that’s what Bank Holidays are about aren’t they?!
To be fair to Everest, they aren’t the only ones who have lengthened their guarantees in order to win more business. But what I cannot understand, in an industry being crippled by thin margins becoming thinner all the time, low consumer confidence and rife-undercutting, why would companies put yet more long-term financial pressures on themselves buy offering unrealistically long guarantees?
Pretty much all of us agree that the current ten year guarantees are too long, especially when you compare them to other big ticket items such as cars. Surely there’s some other, more practical way of winning new business? Like selling the benefits of your product, promoting good long company history? To be completely honest, very little business is won on lengths of guarantees. I can’t think of a contract that I lost because the customer told me that another company’s guarantee was a few years longer.
On a lighter note, I hope everyone enjoyed their Bank Holiday weekend! I spent way more than I should, probably drank way more than I should, and was generally about as unproductive as possible…but that’s what Bank Holidays are about aren’t they?!
