I have often written how customer satisfaction is the key to the long-term success of any business. This applies to the full gamut of service industries, but it also applies in a much more tangible manner to the manufacturers of everyday products. As the owner of a small business, you need to spend your dollars wisely, and there is no greater assurance of satisfaction than an unconditional lifetime warranty.

Companies that offer no-questions-asked warranties generally do so because they know that they can stand behind the quality of their products, in a day and age where so many people have grown to accept the concept of planned obsolescence. Sure, you might pay a slight premium for the better quality product, but wouldn’t you rather support businesses that, like your own, are committed to customer satisfaction? As a bonus, many of these products are made in the USA, helping to employ people who might be the same people who will in turn patronize your business.

In years past, before the days of mass production, and certainly before the days when manufacturing began to be outsourced to foreign factories employing a low-wage workforce, manufacturers were more typically craftsmen who took great personal pride in what they had made. Products were designed and intended to last for years. When they eventually reached the end of their useful lives, they were often imaginatively repurposed, rather than being hauled off to a landfill for the rest of eternity.

Quality and Marketing Intersect in Freeport, Maine

Many companies today differentiate themselves from their competition by standing behind their products and using that customer assurance as a highly effective marketing tool. If any individual could be singled out as the originator of the concept, it would be Leon Leonwood Bean, who founded the company that bears his name in a one-room operation in Freeport, Maine back in 1912. His first and only product at the time was the Maine Hunting Shoe – affectionately known for many years as the “Bean Boot”. According to the company, 90% of the original production run back in 1912 was returned under the terms of L.L. Bean’s money-back guarantee, due to design defects. Those defects were corrected, and the company’s flagship store now occupies 220,000 square feet and is one of the leading tourist attractions in the state of Maine. Along with its 41 satellite stores, the privately-held company employed a workforce of 5,000 with sales exceeding $1.61 billion in 2014. The iconic Maine Hunting Shoe is still made in the USA, at a plant in Brunswick, Maine that employs 450 people.

The List

L.L. Bean: A full line of men’s, women’s and children’s clothing; footwear; outdoor gear; hunting and fishing gear and apparel; luggage; and products for the home.
www.llbean.com
100% satisfaction guaranteed, free shipping to the U.S. and Canada with no minimum order.

Eddie Bauer: A full line of men’s, women’s and children’s clothing; outdoor gear; footwear; outerwear; and home accessories.
www.eddiebauer.com
Unconditional lifetime guarantee

The North Face: Men’s, women’s and children’s clothing; outdoor gear (including tents and sleeping bags); footwear; and backpacks.
www.thenorthface.com
Lifetime limited warranty

Lands’ End: Men’s, women’s and children’s clothing and shoes; swimwear; and home accessories.
www.landsend.com
Lands’ End has actually trademarked its warranty: “Guaranteed. Period.”

Patagonia: Men’s, women’s and children’s clothing; outdoor gear.
www.patagonia.com
“Ironclad Guarantee”

Duluth Trading Company: Men’s and women’s outdoor clothing, footwear, and accessories. Over 150 products made in the USA.
www.duluthtrading.com
“No Bull Guarantee”           

Bogs: Boots for men, women and children.
www.bogsfootwear.com
100% satisfaction guarantee, free shipping and returns on all non-sale items.

Darn Tough Vermont Socks: Comfortable, durable socks, made in the USA.
www.darntough.com
Unconditional lifetime guarantee

Dr. Martens For Life: Men’s and women’s boots, shoes, and industrial footwear.
www.drmartens.com
Only “For Life” products are covered under the company’s lifetime warranty.

JanSport: Backpacks, bags and accessories.
www.jansport.com
Guaranteed for life, with free shipping and free returns.

Briggs & Riley: Luggage.
www.briggs-riley.com
Lifetime repair guarantee, even if damaged by an airline.

Buck Knives: A complete line of knives, made in the USA.
www.buckknives.com
Forever warranty

W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery: Pocket knives and sporting knives, made in the USA.
www.wrcase.com
Limited lifetime warranty

Craftsman: Hand tools, sold by Sears, Kmart and Ace Hardware stores.
www.craftsman.com
Limited lifetime or full warranty, varies by product.

Kobalt Tools: Hand tools and lawn and garden tools, sold exclusively at Lowe’s.
www.kobalttools.com
Lifetime hassle-free guarantee

Ridgid: Power tools.
www.ridgid.com
Full lifetime warranty on most power tool products

Vortex: Riflescopes, spotting scopes, binoculars and other optics.
www.vortexoptics.com
Unlimited lifetime warranty. Out of 297 customer reviews, 284 rate this company as “excellent”.

CamelBak: Hydration systems.
www.camelbak.com
Lifetime guarantee

I think that many of us have become jaded to the thought that somebody might simply be willing to offer helpful advice. We have encountered too many phone calls from telemarketing scam artists, often alleging that they are calling from either Microsoft or Google, when they are really only trying to get their hands on our credit card numbers. It seems unlikely that anyone might be willing to offer assistance without some sort of strings attached. Well, that might not always be the case.

During the course of my work, I frequently encounter websites that are infected with malware or a virus, have forms or other content that are not functioning properly, or are entirely disabled. There are even instances when search results on Google will warn users either that “This site may harm your computer” or “This site may be hacked.”

I encounter these sites most frequently when checking for potential outgoing links – typically area attractions or local tourism districts – to be added to my clients’ websites. I also frequently encounter these warnings attached to do-it-yourself websites, where the webmasters have no knowledge or understanding of server security issues. Google provides several useful resources that will guide webmasters through the recovery process in these instances, but a quick glance will immediately suggest that anyone other than an experienced server administrator will be way out of his league and will be quickly sinking in quicksand.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/hacked/

Malicious content on websites goes hand-in-hand with browser security vulnerabilities, making it all that much more important for computer users to install the latest browser security updates. Between January 26 and April 26, 2016, the Mozilla Foundation has reported 48 security vulnerabilities affecting its Firefox browser – including 15 critical vulnerabilities – that have been patched by security updates … but only if users install those updates. Critical vulnerabilities are defined as vulnerabilities that “can be used to run attacker code and install software, requiring no user interaction beyond normal browsing.” As you can probably deduce, some threats are specific to users of certain browsers, especially outdated versions of those browsers. Sound scary? Absolutely!
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/

The accompanying graphic shows a collage of just a few of the screen shots of warnings that have been displayed on my computer when clicking through to hacked websites. I have blurred out the website URLs in order to avoid embarrassing the site owners.

I have often called the businesses or associations that own such infected websites, feeling socially responsible to inform them of the problems and explaining that they could be infecting significant numbers of visitors to their sites. In almost every instance, I encounter denial at the other end of the phone, am told that “nobody else has mentioned a problem”, or get brushed off with “we will tell our webmaster” before they hang up the phone. Never once has anybody thanked me for calling a problem to their attention.

If somebody calls you to report a problem with your website, take a moment to listen. Be cautious, if not suspicious, since most of those unsolicited calls are scams; however, at least do yourself the favor of soliciting a second opinion from somebody knowledgeable who you know you can trust.

I have been doing a bit of flying lately, and this has given me pause to think about how both airports and airlines have either adapted to external factors or have been doomed to fail. To survive – and indeed to succeed – any business needs to be aware of changes in its surroundings and to keep a proverbial ear to the ground. You may not be listening for an oncoming stampede of buffalo, but the consequences could be just as dire.

It was not simply the airliners being flown into the Twin Towers that changed the way we fly forever. There were other, much more subtle factors that came into play over time. Let’s examine two issues: reading and restaurants.

Reading

In years past, passengers tended to either nap or read while flying. On short flights, the monthly airline magazine and the (now defunct) SkyMall catalog would keep many people occupied. For longer flights (or for frequent flyers who had already read that month’s literature in the seatback pocket), you would find passengers reading books, magazines, and newspapers like The Wall Street Journal. Booksellers were among the busiest stores in the airport terminals.

If you were an airport bookseller, life was good … until external factors came into play. Those started with e-Readers like Kindle, but the real game-changer was when the airlines started offering wi-fi on flights. The same people who were glued to their phones and tablets when on the ground could now remain equally attached at 30,000 feet.

Restaurants

Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, one of my cousins was the manager of the upscale restaurant at Bradley International Airport (my local airport, serving Hartford, Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts.) In those pre-TSA days, half of the restaurant’s clientele consisted of people who drove to the airport from the Hartford or Springfield areas specifically to dine at The Terrace Room.

Most passengers back in those days probably grumbled about the shrink-wrapped serving trays but were content with eating the meals that were routinely served by their Eastern, Northeast, Pan Am and TWA flight attendants, and airline catering companies were just as busy as baggage handlers. The first game-changer was when the airlines stopped serving meals to the coach class passengers who make up the bulk of each flight.

If they are not being fed in flight, passengers quite naturally turn to restaurants in the airport terminals. Fast food generally rules because it is, by definition, “fast”, at a time when passengers have mere moments to spare after snaking through the TSA screening process. Because only ticketed passengers are allowed into airport terminals these days, there are no opportunities for restaurants to solicit business from folks without boarding passes.

On the other hand, with fewer non-stop flights, restaurants in hub airports like Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, Chicago’s O’Hare, Charlotte’s Douglas International, and Washington DC’s Reagan National tend to offer more variety in dining, capitalizing upon sometimes lengthy layovers between connecting flights. One of my favorites is Café Intermezzo, located in Terminal B at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, in Atlanta. The restaurant features fine dining, an extensive alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage menu, and – this is the kicker – a bookstore. Are you starting to get a feeling for how it is possible to adapt to external factors? At a time when standalone airport bookstores are struggling, adding bookshelves to a restaurant wall serve to supplement the dining experience without cannibalizing dining space or adding to the business’s rent.

Is your campground keeping abreast of external developments that can either positively or negatively impact your business? These can include low gasoline prices, highway construction detours, flooding and other extreme weather incidents, the potential onslaught of the Zika Virus, the proliferation of drones (and their potential threat to the privacy of your guests), and overall upturns and downturns in the local, regional and national economies.

As you can see, some of these are positive, others are predominantly negative, and in some cases negatives can be turned into positives. The important thing is not to be caught off-guard but to see these influences coming. Only with that knowledge can you prepare to develop strategies that will allow you to make the best of every situation that is beyond your control.