A guarantee can give your accountancy firm a competitive edge.

But most firms don’t bother with guarantees.

Strange!

And the few accountants that do bother with guarantees tend to hide them under a bushel rather than make them blatantly obvious. Or they make them so bland and weak that they aren’t worth diddlysquat to business owners and therefore don’t result in more clients.

If you’re challenged by the bravery necessary to use a compelling guarantee visit our previous blog here.

If you’re wondering how exactly to construct a compelling guarantee for your firm here’s the 10 characteristics you must consider. 

And if you want if you want to read more about how guarantees can work for you click here.

10 characteristics of a compelling guarantee:

1. Be relevant and meaningful – Successful guarantees must be perceived as relevant and meaningful to your buyers

2. Be credible and believable – You reduce credibility the more conditions you attach to your guarantee

3. Be clear and concise – A successful guarantee must be described in a clear and concise way

4. Be committed to customer satisfaction – A successful guarantee is not a marketing gimmick

5. Make your guarantee blatant – A successful guarantee must be explicit, blatant, obvious; not implied, tentative or hidden

6. Use precise language – A successful guarantee must use precise language about the things the guarantee covers

7. Make your trigger easy – Use a clear, simple and inviting mechanism for triggering the guarantee

8. Respond quickly – A successful guarantee must respond quickly to any customer triggering your guarantee

9. Educate and train all your people – Train your people on how to respond to guarantee requests – ‘speed-is-of-the- essence’

10. Be stronger than your competition – Create successful guarantees that are perceived as more powerful than your competitors

The best way to fully appreciate the power of these 10 characteristics is to use an example.

See how the Premier Inn guarantee stacks up against these 10 characteristics and achieves, we reckon, a score of 70/100. Not perfect but good enough to grow the business by 400% and become market leader in the budget hotel sector.

You can see the Premier Inn guarantee score and assessment here.

Plus you can compare it with several other examples too.

Paul Shrimpling