Do you offer a 100% Unconditional money back guarantee?

Web developer and designer don't guarantee their work

[Arkanoid1984]

...I guess not.
It seems that offering a money back guarantee when you are developer/designer is a bad idea.Especially if your client don't know what they really want.I have found ton of reasons to not to try that. But I'm still looking for some alternative to the money back guarantee concept which in fact is a risk reversal technique to make the customers more inclined to buy the proposed service/product.

[Travoli]

>to make the customers more inclined to buy the proposed service/product.

Can you show them a big portfolio of your slick work? If I were buying, this would be how I decide.

[EliteWeb]

When you use a Frontpage Template You can offer a money back guarentee because your using TEMPLATE work. However when I sit down with the client they're buying MY time - with their thoughts and mine we construct what they feel will work best for them. Aprovals are gotten and the site is made.

[Eric_Jarvis]

since almost all my work has come from being personally recommended I've never seen the need...the guarantee is that I'll bust a gut to do my best in order to get more recommendations and thus more work

[The Man in Black]

I would refer to this analogy:

Let's say you have a normal 9-5 job doing anything, and you do poor quality of work, cost the company a lot of money, do you offer them a money back guarantee? Even when you applied, you did not offer that nor was it part of the application process. If the company is unsatisfied with your work, they terminate your job and get someone else.

[edited by: engine at 2:15 pm (utc) on Dec. 13, 2002]
[edit reason] no sigs, please. [/edit]

[Arkanoid1984]

>since almost all my work has come from being personally >recommended

That the same for me. But since I have a website I'm interested to see how can I get clients with the web.

[tedster]

Risk reversal is a good marketing method - and it doesn't have to be as grand as a money back guarantee.

One kind of risk reversal is to allow the client several opt-out points in the process. We do this early on - by producing full documentation, research reports and prototypes for the work we plan to undertake. The client has paid for this upfront, but they are welcome to bow out right there, according to our preliminary contracts.

And, we're sure they've got their money's worth if they do leave - the real brain work goes in early and they can use that work with anyone who understands enough to execute all or part of our early planning.

Staged development has been, in general, a good approach for us and the client. By the way, we've only ever had one client leave in the early stages. And that was because their funding dried up.

Another advantage of working like this is that we stopped doing free proposals - we used to give away our best ideas for free. One time when the prospect was done picking our brains, they dropped us and hired their nephew -- who tried to carry out everything we said should be done.

[HitProf]

We do offer money back guarantee. Not unconditional however.

We guarantee certain results and pay back if we don't make it happen.

Never happened so far :)

But I don't really like this concept and I always advise for straigthforward optimisation without guarantees.

[lorax]

>> I'm interested to see how can I get clients with the web

I get all of my work from referrals. I use the website as informational brochure. I guarantee results - but not a money-back policy. If the customer isn't happy with what's been done, I'll work with them to rectify it to their satisfaction. Though, I haven't been asked to do this yet.

[john316]

>>Unconditional money back guarantee<<

The definition of the above is "no agreement", I guess we could turn the tables and say "Unconditional billing" but that would be just as silly.