The Most Powerful Part of a Client Satisfaction Guarantee
Image credit: @jessbaileydesigns
Guarantees are a tough one in this industry - a very sensitive subject. If in your heart of hearts you know that you would re-shoot or refund if someone isn’t happy, then you already have a guarantee but it’s messy and complicated and not being used to its full and powerful marketing advantage but rather a knee-jerk reaction to a customer complaint. This is not a good scenario because you might feel backed into a corner instead of feeling like the in-control business owner you would like to be. I wrote another post about guarantees here that helps understand the psychology behind it all. But today, I am floating out the most powerful part of the client guarantee, which tends to guarantee that the guarantee will not ever be called in! Ready for this secret weapon?
A money-back photography service guarantee holds YOU accountable.
Yes, a money-back guarantee is a powerful marketing tool with benefit to the client by removing their risk and objections which paves the way for smooth and confident booking, but the critical effect is the one it has on YOU.
Tell me why you really don’t want to offer a money-back guarantee. I hear a lot of photographers in groups saying they deserve to be paid for the work they performed when clients demand a refund. And yet many of those same photographers deserving of that pay charge very low rates or heavily discount their services to get those clients, taking that pay away from themselves before the client ever asked! I believe the real reason why photographers resist a money-back guarantee is because of their IMPOSTOR. The impostor tells you that your work is not good enough, so if you did offer a guarantee, the only guarantee it would give is that everyone would instantly demand their money back and the business would collapse quickly. The impostor introduces doubt and lack in confidence disguised by the very noble concept of deserving to be paid for time and effort.
Don’t misinterpret my stance. I FULLY AGREE that photographers should be paid for their time and paid well to boot - healthy pricing for a healthy business. What I am saying is that a money-back guarantee doesn’t jeopardize your income as much as you think it does, while discounts and low rates do jeopardize your income because if you use these tactics, you have guaranteed that you aren’t getting that income!
A guarantee is a refund on your terms so you would have the upper hand if you offered one. A client would never get to the point of demanding anything because the guarantee pre-empts any demands! Any issue would be quickly and effectively resolved. If you already decided before you even took any business that you would refund no questions asked, then the problem client would get their money and be gone and there would no threats of bad reviews and no back and forth and no “what should I do” and you could immediately get back to work finding better fit clients. And that is if — and it’s a big if — that scenario happens. The truth is that if guarantees didn’t work, they’d be long extinct in marketing. Even if you do give money back, the equation works in your favour more than it doesn’t. Why? Because it holds you accountable.
Say you are part of a community group. You have been assigned a role in that group as treasurer. When the entire group has named you and agreed for you to be treasurer, what do you think will happen? You will probably try very hard to be a good treasurer and make sure people are happy with how you manage and care for the money. You wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone, you want to do a great job for your community and you don’t want anyone believing you would mismanage funds. You have been assigned responsibility and you will be a good steward of it, to make sure that the role is not called back for any reason, because that would mean you didn’t succeed in it.
When you create a client satisfaction guarantee (and it doesn’t have to be money back, it could be to reshoot or give added value in return), you assign yourself into a role. Being designated as someone’s photographer with a guarantee riding on it, similar to the analogy above, psychologically commits you in responsibility and stewardship. And what does that do? It helps you to be successful in your role. And what does that do? When you are successful in your role and people are happy with your work and your results, no one needs the guarantee.
If you are scared to offer a guarantee, I’m suggesting that you aren’t scared of the client calling in the guarantee, but scared of being able to perform to the level that the guarantee commits you to. If you can be brave and can bring yourself to offer a guarantee, its presence helps to transform you and make you accountable. What do experts say about business goals? To tell someone or write them down to create that accountability. What do fitness gurus tell us? Bring a buddy to the gym to hold us accountable. Your guarantee is your accountability buddy. It will be there to cheer you on to keep showing up, to keep finding ways to surprise and delight your clients, to serve them at your highest level. And when you are operating in that positive-energy space, it will be very likely that people are over the moon to receive their photos and the likelihood of a guarantee to be called in becomes slim to none. But the guarantee can attract many more into your business than without a guarantee, so the combination of guarantee plus accountability is the power couple that can help you improve bookings.
Let a guarantee push you to greater heights of business acumen, skill and art, instead of cowering in the shadows with discounts that de-value. If you discount, you are 100% certain that you won’t collect the discounted amount. Offering a guarantee is not a 100% certainty that it will be requested. Because of the continued use of guarantees by many businesses for decades, seems to me that the chances are much, MUCH lower than 100%. I have been in business over 10 years and not a single request to use my money-back guarantee. I’ll definitely stick with those odds over a 100% certain loss with a discount!
P.S. I know many of you will still object, saying there are clients out there who will take advantage of guarantees to get their photos and their money and leave you sh!t out of luck. To that, I will say the way to combat this is not to leave a powerful guarantee on the table that can help generate more bookings, but to find clients who aren’t looking to scam someone. I have the same opinion on this as I do for the watermark-removing crowd (with proposed solutions) and you can read about it here.
Are you ready to stand by your work? I hope I have showed you that it can reap great rewards in more ways than one!
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