We recently released a survey to several thousand car lift owners in order to get a better understanding of what matters to them when they purchase a lift. Some of the results were predicable, while others made us realize there's still some work to do when it comes to ensuring folks understand the relationship between price, service, quality and warranty.

We appreciate each and every one of you who made this happen for us. Your responses have painted for us an even clearer picture of our community, highlighting our strengths and areas of growth. This article is going to break down some of those responses. We'll offer our own interpretation, and in the weeks and months ahead, continue to demonstrate the ways we're committed to doing what's best for you—based on what people like you have said!

Note: For questions that required respondents to make qualifying statements, the choices were Very Important, Somewhat Important and Not Important.

Quality & customer service matter more than price

It would be pretty bad if the majority of car lift shoppers treated this purchase like a simple stroll through Wal-Mart®. We at BendPak do not advertise our products using language like "the best savings" or "cheapest prices" for a reason. And that reason is that to us, price is far less important than the quality of the product and level of customer service offered by the company. As it turns out, our customers feel the same way.

In fact, 87% of respondents say customer service is Very Important to them, exceeded only by product quality, which takes 96%, the single-highest percentage of any question in our survey.  Only 2% indicate  customer service is Not Important, and less than 1% feel quality is Not Important. Since even the best survey will contain a 3% margin of error, we're confident that just about everyone is willing to pay a little more for a product that goes above and beyond expectations. Sorry for the number salad here, but we encourage you to read on, because things are about to get a lot more interesting.

Price cited as the BEST way to earn your business. But wait, we thought...

It took us a second to get this one nailed down. After all, the previous paragraph explores hows price isn't as valuable to customers as product quality and customer service. So then, why does customer service (31%) rank second to price (43%) when it comes to the BEST way to earn a new customer's business? We did some digging and think we have an idea.

No one wants to gripe about a few bucks, because we all know that the old saying, "you get what you pay for," tends to ring true. That being said, it's obvious when someone is price-gouging you, and no one wants to be made a fool. So, let's look beyond price to see what goes into a BendPak product. Even though price appears to be a great way to get people in the door, a whopping 77% of our respondents say they're willing to pay more for a lift that's durable and provides longevity.  Nearly half say they intend to keep their lifts for 20 years or more, and it's going to take a seriously high-quality lift to last that long! No one looking to keep a lift for two decades is bargain barrel shopping, which is good, because a quality lift by BendPak is going to offer the best of both words: a long-lasting product at a price you can really sink your teeth into.

Warranty, warranty, warranty!

We talk a lot about our warranty program at BendPak. That's because the 5-2-1 car lift warranty that comes standard on most of our lifting equipment is the best in the industry. Others will charge an arm and a leg for an extended warranty that still doesn't match our standard offering. And this is by design. Over 80% of all customers say warranty is Very Important to them. We're guessing this means about 80% of all customers are also buying a brand new lift, because used lifts don't come with a very robust warranty plan. Ironically, however, less than 8% of respondents say they're willing to pay more for a lift with a good warranty.

This last sentence is arguably one of the most important pieces of information gathered from our survey. We believe in including our 5-2-1 warranty with your purchase because it's the right thing to do. BendPak lifts cost a little more, so they should be a much higher quality product than what's offered by our competition. It appears that our customers are in lock-step with us here. They don't want to pay more for something they expect to be a standard feature. The product should speak for itself with a grand warranty that kicks everyone else's butt. Excuse our French.

So, the next time you're looking for a new car lift, consider that about half of everyone we surveyed owns BendPak. There's simply no one else that comes close to offering what you want, what you need and what you deserve. We'll continue to share more details about our survey results as we think of even more ways to meet and exceed your expectations.