WARRANTY Means They'll Be Around For 6 Months To Fix It When It Breaks And GUARANTEE Means We'll Do The Work Now To Prevent It From Breaking At All
How You Can Be Sure You're Getting Quality Work Before and After It's Done
Warranty
Every IT consulting firm offers you a fairly standard warranty. The average warranty is about six (6) months of bug fixes after your employees or customers have started using your new product.
Some will even tell you it's free. But the truth is that when they build your project estimate, they ADD 15% to 20% on top of what they think it will cost to build and then add this into your bill across the project. If your project is more complicated, they will add 25% to 30%. This additional charge is intended to pay for the warranty period they offer you at the end of your project.
Why do they do this? Because they know they will not deliver a bug-free product, they don't want to work for free but want you to have the illusion that you are getting more value than you are, and it prolongs their relationship with you (which means they are hoping that at some point you'll give them more work to do).
Ask yourself what happens when bugs are found outside of the warranty period. I can tell you what happens: they'll start charging you to fix their own mistakes! Now tell me, does that sound fair? Worse, doesn't that mean that during the warranty period they are actually less motivated to find bugs, more motivated to hide on them or to actually make more of them? Whether they do or not, there is far too much room here be certain it won't happen.
Warranty FAQ
Warranties are designed for parts that break over time due to usage. Cars, computers and appliances come with warranties because they are parts that are expected to break down over a certain period of time. Because of this manufacturers set warranties to expire right before the product is expected to break down. Software doesn't break down over time with use because there is no element of wear.
6 Months?? Most appliances come with at least a one-year warranty and cost much less than software. Automobile manufacturers now typically offer 5 year warranties for their products.
Vs.
Guarantee
Remember when you were a kid, and you had to wash dishes by hand? The dishes were inspected by your Mother and if any didn't pass, you had to wash them again. If too many were still dirty, you had to re-wash the entire load. It didn't take long for quality to improve and for you to learn that if you're going to do a job, that it takes less time and stress (& arguing) to do it right the first time.
That's exactly what a guarantee is. It tells you that we took the time to do it right the first time because we know it costs less, takes less time and causes less headaches for you later on. A guarantee means we stand behind our work because we know the value of doing it right the first time and that we believe in the job we do.
Our Guarantee
1. We’ll provide you with the best possible services.
It's important to us that you get the products that actually meet your needs and support your business. That means we are here to provide you with the services you need to make those products and obviously the better we are at delivering those services, the better the results that you will get.
2. We’ll treat your best interests as if they were our own (technically they are).
We're in business to provide companies like yours with the technical solutions you need to remain competitive and increase your revenues.
3. We’ll make it right. If we miss the mark and need to fix it, we will.
Ensuring that you get the right product is key for us to maintain our relationship with you. That means we work to fix any errors before they impact the end product.
4. We’ll stay until the job is done and support it after that.
Once we have committed to your project, we won't jump ship or walk off the job until it is completed. After we are done, we happily offer ongoing application resource support (help desk) to ensure everything is still going smoothly as you work with the product over the course of it's life cycle.
5. We’ll refund your money if we can’t fix it.
Okay, no one's perfect. So if we make a mistake and we can't make it right for you, we'll return any unburned money plus an additional percentage (as part of good customer service) on time & expenses projects and a percentage on fixed bid projects (according to the percentage of the project that is complete and how much of the product is actually useable). If that means we lose money on your project, then that means it won't happen again.
Guarantee FAQ's
Do we pad our billing the same way that warranties do so we still get paid? No. You pay a slightly higher price up front simply because you are paying for better resources, but we do not add in the additional 15 to 20% on top of your estimate.
How can you ensure that we will still be motivated to fix any issues that do crop up? Simply put, it hits us all in the pocketbook if we don't. We offer our resources a profit-sharing model that means they each have a stake in the quality and success of getting it right for you the first time.
How do we determine the additional percentage that will be returned for good customer service on a time & expenses bid project? The additional percentage is negotiated with you as part of settling the project in a way that is fair to each of is for the time, effort and expenses we have each put into your project.
How do we determine the percentage that will be returned for percentage of the project completed on a fixed bid project? The percentage is calculated based on how much of the project is actually completed (based on an audit, not just based on what stakeholders and project managers report).
Do we guarantee your results? No one can guarantee your results, but can guarantee our service and that we will use best practices to ensure you get the best results possbile. This is similar to the promise you get from doctors and lawyers. While they can't guarantee your results, they can promise to that their services will use the best strategies and approaches to ensure the best results possible for your unique situation.