What A Warranty Is And Isn’t

Not all problems raised on social media are what they appear to be.

I read a Twitter thread between an entrepreneur and a customer service organization about a warranty issue this weekend. The entrepreneur is furious: her computer is down and she can’t afford any downtime to get the problem resolved.

While she wants to blame the manufacturer, she needs to look more closely at her own business practices. I see several problems here:

• “Warranty” means that if something goes wrong, the customer will not be charged for the repair or replacement of the product. That replacement needs to be accomplished within a contractually-agreed period of time.

• “Warranty” is not a service package that provides minimal downtime in the event there is a problem. Some companies offer that as a separate service package.

If you are an entrepreneur, you can’t afford to have a single point of failure in your business, e.g., your computer is down. This is independent of a warranty issue that might be encountered. If you can’t afford downtime, then you either need a second computer or, if you can get it, a service package that provides for a replacement computer within an agreed to timeframe.

The entrepreneur hasn’t thought this through. And, now, she’s faced with the consequences of not doing that. I don’t see it as the manufacturer’s problem to do more than they are contractually obligated to do. Lashing out at the manufacturer via social media isn’t going to help.

If you live in a flood plain and don’t have flood insurance, you can’t call and get flood insurance to cover a flood event the day after your place has just flooded. And, so it is with a warranty need versus a service package need.

Entrepreneurs need to pro-actively take action before something goes awry. As the Daiai Lama offers, “When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.”
Thought For The Week:

“If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.” – John D. Rockefeller