The other week, we did a very corporate thing. We conducted focus groups.
We're talking the whole enchilada: board room with a moderator leading six or eight people in discussion, while we all hid behind a two-way mirror and took reams of notes. We listened to people who bought our warranty, people who bought our warranty despite a no-warranty policy, and people who never buy warranties, period. We even listened to one sterling gent describe in detail how he was planning to defraud us (wouldn't work) while our C/S lead jotted his name down for future reference. Interesting stuff.
The guiding mantra at SquareTrade is to make things make sense. We want our warranties to work the way warranties should work, at a price-point that reflects reality, with a level of service we'd want to experience. Sounds fair, right?
So the surprises in those groups weren't that they liked the service, the price, the big value propositions. They did, and we're glad, but what they really latched onto were more "built-in" features. Basic I things that we don't always spend a lot of time thinking about, but are fundamental and unique to the way SquareTrade works.
The first was Time. They did like the thirty-day window SquareTrade gave them to think it over, do a little research, and buy their warranty. It felt more honest to them.
The second was how they could check and manage their warranties and claims through our online account manager. The idea that they could actually find out how much time was left on a warranty, or see where their item was in the claims process just by jumping online was a lot like moving from stagecoach wheels to steel-belted radials.
The third one caught us a little off-guard: they loved the simplicity. They loved the fact that the same warranty terms applied to laptops or refrigerators, cell phones or PlayStations, digital cameras or iPods. One warranty, one set of terms to keep track of, for everything.
And that's really how it should be. One standard, with the bar set high.
Things wrapped up pretty late that night, and everybody was a bit drained. The last focus group was breaking up and heading out the door. After finding out all the things SquareTrade does and plans to do to completely change the warranty industry, one of them paused and turned to the moderator, and asked "Is this a real company?"
We like to think so.
