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cocoy
05-13-2009, 03:22 PM
What's your follow up method?

Say...You get an e-mail or phone call asking about your services. You reply then don't hear back. Do you do a follow up or just take it as a lost customer?

If you do a follow up. What should you say and what method? (email, mail, phone call)

rezzy
05-13-2009, 04:09 PM
If we assume they are lost, then I like to send a follow up. In it I just say, wanted to make sure you got my quote. I have found sometimes, this email can bring the person back and give me some closure.

I have both times, that going back moved the sale along.

Evan
05-13-2009, 05:06 PM
You should follow up at least four times if you are planning to make a sale. If you don't leave a message, that doesn't "count" as a time.

People are busy. Try three phone calls, and you could always send a nice letter (or e-mail) with more information assuming you have that information about the prospect for your fourth attempt.

The point here is to be consistent, but not annoying.

vangogh
05-13-2009, 06:11 PM
I used to, but not anymore under the condition you mentioned. If someone contacted me, I reply, and they don't reply back, I don't consider them a strong lead. People contact me all the time looking for a price and probably hoping I'll cost less than the half dozen or so other people they contacted.

Oddly once I stopped chasing people and waited for them to get back to me I started turning more contacts into paying jobs.

billbenson
05-13-2009, 06:26 PM
Always leave a reason to follow up. Some additional information that the customer needs. That way they want to talk to you again and appreciate your calling back. Don't give them the information in a message, only when you are talking to them. If you are emailing them, you can always call on the pretense of a bounced email. Only quit when you think the order is dead, but don't bug the customer. You are doing good when you get them to call you.

vangogh
05-13-2009, 06:51 PM
Only quit when you think the order is dead

That's why I don't follow up after the initial contact. The lead doesn't seem strong enough to me and chasing them down only seemed to waste my time.

In other cases if the client and I had communicated a few times and the lead was stronger I would follow up (usually via email). I always try to leave something open ended in communication that would allow for a follow up.

You have to think about the potential for gaining a client or customer and based on that follow up.

SuzanneDIngram
05-13-2009, 07:28 PM
When someone emails our firm asking for information, I call that a lead and I value each lead at $75. I keep all leads, whether they get back to us or not. Here's our procedure:

Day 1 - call and leave message (LM) and send an email saying, "Thank you for contacting our firm. Please give is a call so that we can discuss your project in more detail." At this point we don't start researching lists or doing any work until they contact us back. Put them in your CRM and set a reminder to call again in 2 days.

Day 3 - call and LM. Send email. "Hi, this is Suzanne again, trying to connect with you in regards to your request for information from our firm."

Day 7 - call and LM again. Email again.

Month 1, 2, 3, etc, call and email once a month. Our emails are all handled automatically through our software. I also send a postcard (big believer in postcard marketing!) once every three months if I have their address and it passes verification.

Here's my philosophy - People do their planning at different times than their buying. I know, it is rude when they don't email you back or call you back, but I can't tell you how many times, months later, people have come back and said, "Sorry it took me forever to get back to you" and then bought a list, and they always say Thank you so much for your excellent follow up!

I feel that deleting people who don't get back to me is the equivalent of throwing away $75. Sometimes I even get referrals from these people and it just cracks me up when I hear, "So and so referred me to you" and I think, "Who on earth is that? Oh, that guy who never responded to me." :)

Anyway, I don't take it personally when someone does not respond, I just keep plugging away. One little trick for calling and leaving a message is to say: Hi, it's Suzanne calling from Strategic lists, and I wanted to get back to you regarding your inquiry with our firm on March 27th. [say the date]. Please give me a call so that we can discuss your project in more detail. I can be reached at XYZ. If I don't hear back, I'll call you again in 3 or 4 days." It sounds like very thorough follow up but in fact, if people hear you saying "I will call you again" they figure, jeesh this woman is not going to give up so I better call her back. ;)

Sorry this post is so long but I hope it has been helpful.

Cheers,
Suzanne

huggytree
05-13-2009, 08:25 PM
If I called back each homeowner i did an estimate for 4x id have restraining orders against me....id consider that harrasment

I sometimes do follow up calls, usually the homeowner seems annoyed...its obvious, not subtle

The best advice i was given is let them go...if they want you they will call you...by badgering them it isnt going to make them like you more.

When I go bid that is my 1 chance for giving my sales pitch...either it works or not....calling up saying ' have you decided yet' doesnt help me.....

I call sometimes just to get info from the homeowner...i can see how much cheaper they got the plumbing for....that helps me gauge the market.

something i should do is come up with a flier that i send out 2 weeks later giving out all my sales plus's again......i already give them a flier & testimonial sheet....i could see contacting by mail being better.

Dan Furman
05-13-2009, 08:43 PM
I used to, but not anymore under the condition you mentioned. If someone contacted me, I reply, and they don't reply back, I don't consider them a strong lead. People contact me all the time looking for a price and probably hoping I'll cost less than the half dozen or so other people they contacted.


I follow up exactly like this. All the followup in the world isn't helping if they don't like my price. And plenty don't - a guy expecting someone to write articles for $25 isn't hiring me no matter what.

vangogh
05-13-2009, 08:48 PM
Dan you probably get some of the same emails I get. The ones where you can immediately tell the person is looking to spend $50 on $1000 of work. I've learned to identify those, give them a quick price and move on. I won't follow up with them because I know there's little point.

Suzanne - good info. I like your process. With me I know a good % of people who'll contact me are never going to turn into good clients for one reason or another. For me I couldn't put the same value on each lead, because they won't bring the same value to my business. Those that will, I do follow up with and do what I can to close the sale.

billbenson
05-14-2009, 12:04 AM
I agree VG, there is no point in trying to get business you don't want. That includes people that will only complain etc. You might want those just starting up though? You are just at a point where you don't have to do that.

I don't think the original post was for that situation or a one call close situation though.

vangogh
05-14-2009, 12:41 AM
The original post just mentioned the person who contacts you and never contacts you again after your initial reply. This isn't necessarily true for all businesses, but for mine those people tend not to be good leads and so I generally won't follow up. If they reply to my reply it's a different story.

Just to give an idea of what I'm talking about I get emails in which the entire email is:

"How much to seo my site" or "how much for a website"

My response is usually to ask for some details and then offer a very general and very broad price range. If that person doesn't reply I'm not going to follow up.

billbenson
05-14-2009, 03:35 AM
You may already do something like this, but in your situation I'd have a few boilerplate emails to send or even do a php mail() form; enter cust name, email, select boilerlpate, click.

At that point, my objective would be to get something in their hands they may want to refer to, so they don't delete it and to have my signature in their inbox. Who knows, they might wise up and turn into a customer in a year as Suzanne suggested.

I agree, its not worth more than a couple of clicks of your time which is why I like things like the php boilerplate above.

In my case, I get a lot of datasheet requests, requests for local distributors, etc., that will probably never turn into business. I always take the time to answer them. I probably get about 50 of those a week. Some take a bit of time as I may need to do some research or write a several paragraph explanation. Probably something like 3 to 5% of them turn into orders. That's worth my time as my orders can be fairly large.

Steve B
05-14-2009, 09:55 AM
If I get a phone call asking for information (and a price) the process is as follows:
1. Send e-mail within 48 hours with written quote and link to website etc.
2. Two-weeks (approx.) later - I send a 2nd e-mail asking if they have any questions.
3. 2 weeks (approx.) later - I send a hard copy letter to their home.
4. Several months later - I send them a general letter about our company.

I almost never call them on the phone - if they want to avoid me I make it easy on them by only contacting by e-mail and real mail. It sounds like I should probably shorten up the time between 1 and 2 and 2 and 3. I may need to have an admin. person do that for me since I have trouble keeping up with it.

vangogh
05-14-2009, 11:09 AM
Bill that's pretty much what I do. I'll always answer the initial email. But I've learned to throw in some kind of price even if it has to be somewhat vague. That seems to very quickly sort out the legit requests from the tire-kickers.

Steve it probably would make sense to shorten the time between some of your steps. Maybe one week instead of two weeks. I assume you keep some record of all the calls. Is there a way to tie it into a calendar application that alerts you what day to send. With the email you could use a mailing list to send out the emails automatically too.

billbenson
05-14-2009, 06:05 PM
If you had some boiler plates, you could always batch the followup emails. That way you don't need to think about sending and keeping track of followup emails every day. I'm a big fan of automation when possible. there is probably software out there that does this. I'd just write it to get exactly what I want.

Steve B
05-14-2009, 08:04 PM
True automation would be the ticket. Reminders won't work, because if I'm out of the house all day installing fences it still won't get done.

When I can afford to have a full-time admin. this will be one of his roles.

Patrysha
05-14-2009, 09:12 PM
You likely don't need a full time admin for the work that currently comes in through the web though. After you get the initial query and work out a quote you could pass the information on to a VA who can set up his or her own system to send them out in a timely manner. If you set up the series of emails in advance all he/she will have to do is customize them...and that's easily done with a decent database/word program. How much business would this need to bring in to make it worth the maybe $20-$30 a day it would cost (if you hire domestic)? Unless you get a high volume of email, the price would go up according to how long it would take to do the task of course.

Steve B
05-15-2009, 02:49 AM
I don't get any business through the web. They call me on the phone. That doesn't mean I couldn't use a VA to do this however. I did try using a VA two different times they were both terrible experiences. I know the concept of a VA is a great one, but I'll be reluctant to try it again.

However, you've given me a great idea. I currently have a part-time admin. that comes to the office a couple times a week. I could easily give this follow up to her and let her do it from home. She'll appreciate the extra work and she likes not having to come into the office since she has a toddler at home.

Patrysha
05-15-2009, 10:17 AM
Great idea!

I am actually looking at training local women to do the work I would hire out a VA for. Not that I don't know some great VA's, it's just that with my huge shop local obsession that it makes more sense to find and train someone local.