I recently spoke with a floor covering dealer about warranty issues and his frustration with them. Since the inception of warranties, a subject I’ve written about on more than one occasion, they have created much frustration for not only the flooring dealer and the consumer but the manufacturers as well. Warranties are more of a marketing concept to sell product and less of a real performance issue. Some warranties are legitimate but others aren’t worth the paper their printed on. A comment I’ve often made in speaking engagements and in writing is that whatever most carpet warranties give you in the first paragraph they take away in the next three.
I’ll quote some of his comments here. “Warranties drive me insane because I want to be honest with customers about what is and what is not reality so as not to create a false expectation that later reflects poorly on me and hurts my reputation. The challenge I run into is if a possible customer has been to another floor retailer first and the sales rep pushes the term of a warranty without explaining what it covers or worse that they have no information more than their perception then I tell them the truth, sometimes it makes me look like my store is less than the others. Or, as my father likes to say, they hear lies elsewhere then we tell them the truth which makes us look like liars.” I love this comment, that telling the truth makes them look like liars. Sad isn’t it that they or you for that matter try to be honest with a customer and you have to unravel a tangled mess of misinformation before you can begin to get on track about what product will work best for them.
This dealer goes on to say; “So, as I find myself pondering these things your experience with claims encourages me to contact you. Perhaps a refresher on the following topics would make good column for you to consider:
– What does a stain warranty cover?
– What does a soil warranty cover?
– What is an ideal cushion to protect a customer’s investment in good carpet? Is an 8 pound truly better than 6, or does it sound better because the number is higher?
– The fiber companies do a great job selling why their products are better than their competitors. Is there any real difference between Stainmaster nylon and an Anso? Is Smart Strand as good as my Mohawk reps claim?”
Stain warranties covers stains, not dark spots which most people think are stains. Stains either put color in, like red wine, liqueurs, and red dyed beverages or take color out like bleach, acne medication, etc. What stains they cover and how they cover them is in the first paragraph. Soil warranties would have you believe any dirt is covered. Now how can this be? People walk on carpet tracking soil onto it and gravity pulls airborne soils onto a carpet. Can you have a warranty for soil as it will be interpreted as anything that gets the carpet dirty? This would be like having a warranty on your new car against it getting dirty and we all know that isn’t going to happen. Ludicrous and crazy to offer a soiling warranty on carpet. If you want to open yourselves up for claims this is a fool proof way of doing it. The industry tried to introduce soil warranties back in the nineties and it didn’t fly then, it shouldn’t fly now either. It did nothing but generate claims. Consumers aren’t stupid but if you tell them dirt’s covered they’ll take advantage of the opportunity created. We’ll cover the rest of this in the next issue.
Author: Lewis G. Migliore
LGM and Associates – The Floorcovering Experts