Warranty and service promises in electrical equipment: how to write them without overselling

Your brochure says five-year warranty in large type. Then a contractor rings. A row of floodlights on a factory boundary went dark after the first monsoon. The contractor wants free replacements, a technician to fit them and the hire of a lift to reach the poles. Your terms, if they exist, sit on page four of a quotation nobody opened. A warranty that sells without biting back says plainly what is covered and from which date. It says what is excluded, who pays for labour and access, and how a claim works. And your lawyer checks it before it is printed.

Where electrical warranties go wrong

The number travels without its conditions. A salesperson says "five years" on the phone, the brochure repeats it, and nobody writes down five years of what.

Start dates are left vague. Is it from the invoice, from delivery to site, or from commissioning? On a project, those dates can be a long way apart, and the buyer will usually argue for the latest one.

Parts are lumped together. A floodlight has a driver, an LED module, a housing, a lens and a finish. They do not fail the same way, and your suppliers do not cover them the same way.

Supply and installation failures get mixed with defects. A driver killed by a surge, a fitting full of water because a gland was never tightened, a motor burnt on a single phase: none of these is a manufacturing defect. But if the warranty does not say so, the buyer assumes it is.

Then site costs. Labour, transport, lifts, scaffolding and the electrician's second visit. Silence on these means an argument later.

The warranty card

Put the terms on one card, in plain words, and print the same card on the box, the quotation and the website. Here is a version for an LED floodlight. Change the details to fit your product, then have your lawyer check it, because contract and consumer rules differ and change.

What is covered. The driver and the LED module, against defects in material or manufacture.

From when, and for how long. The period printed on the product label, counted from the invoice date.

What is not covered. Damage from surges, lightning or voltage outside the range on the label. Water entry through glands or joints not sealed at installation. Physical damage, and fittings opened or repaired by others.

How to claim. Send the serial number, invoice number, site address and a photograph of the fitting and its label. Return the failed unit to us, or to the dealer who supplied it.

What we do. We inspect the returned unit and repair or replace it if the fault is covered. We tell you in writing what we found.

What you pay for. Removal and refitting at site, access equipment and transport to our works, unless agreed otherwise in writing for your order.

The card does not promise a repair time. If you want to offer one, put it in the order for that buyer, where you can price it.

Your promise cannot outlast your supplier's

Here is a rule that is cheaper to learn early. Do not promise longer than the supplier of your weakest bought-out part promises you, unless you have priced the gap.

Your driver maker gives you a warranty. So does the supplier of the LED chips, the capacitors in a stabiliser, the bearings in a motor. If your card says five years and the driver maker's says two, the last three years come out of your margin, every claim of them. List every bought-out part that can fail in the field, write its supplier's warranty next to it, and set your own number from that list. Where your number is longer, keep the difference as a provision in your costing, not as a hope.

For example: a Bhiwadi floodlight maker after the monsoon

Imagine a maker of LED floodlights and street lights in Bhiwadi, supplying an electrical contractor who is lighting a warehouse park near Neemrana. The details are illustrative. The brochure said "5 years warranty" and nothing else.

After the first heavy storms, several drivers failed and two fittings were found with water inside. The contractor wanted everything replaced free, with labour and a lift paid for. The maker replaced every fitting to keep the account, then argued for weeks over the lift bill. Both sides came away sore.

The owner took a different line with the returned units. The drivers were opened and tested, and most showed surge damage. A short written report went to the contractor, unit by unit. Clear defects were replaced free. Surge-damaged units were replaced at cost, with a note recommending surge protection at the poles. The two wet fittings went back with photographs of the unsealed glands. The lawyer then checked a new warranty card, which now goes on page one of every quotation. The cost was real: the surge-damaged units were replaced at the maker's own cost price, and the contractor took the next lot from another maker. The contractor did start attaching the card to offers, because it answered the client's questions too.

A claim answered well wins the next order

A buyer does not expect equipment never to fail, only to know where they stand when it does. Every claim is a chance to show that. Acknowledge it the day it arrives. Inspect the returned unit and say in writing what you found. Replace a clear defect without making the buyer argue for it, and explain a rejected claim in terms the buyer's electrician can check.

Then use the claims. A run of failures from one batch, one site or one supply condition is information your factory needs, and sometimes a better installation note than any brochure. One honest limit. On a new product whose field record is thin, skip the long number. A shorter period with a clear claim process is safer than a long one you cannot honour.

Pull your last three claims and, for each, write which line of the card would have settled it. The gaps are what your lawyer should see first. Putting the final wording in front of buyers is sales collateral development, and the wider trade is on the electrical equipment manufacturers page. If your last warranty argument is still open, tell us what you need.