I don’t know what to say when following up, should I even bother?
Yesterday I had the privilege of chatting with Brenda Ster , along with some of her 29K followers! We had an in-depth conversation about
Why Follow up is Everything in Business.
Her community had some great questions about the best way to follow-up, and we were happy to answer. Here are 5 questions to help you to get back into Follow-Up.
Question: How do I follow up if I have never done it, or it has been a long time.
Answer: If you have kept track of your customers, the best thing to do is go back to what they purchased from you in the past.
As Black Friday is coming up, we used this as an example. You could say something like – “Hello Mary, I know you purchased from me a year ago during my Black Friday sale, and I apologize I haven’t followed up with you! As my way of letting you know how much I appreciate you, I would like to give you an extra special discount as you did purchase last year. I promise I will do a much better job of following up with you moving forward!” Brenda adds (and I love this quote) “The biggest thing you can do is fall on your own sword”
Question: What is the best way to keep track of your customers, is an excel spreadsheet good enough?
Answer: This is a great start, using an excel spreadsheet will allow you to keep data on clients, and eventually be able to upload them to a CRM. The thing is, many people will say “I wish I had this tool (Fiitfu) at the beginning of my business”. How many conversations do you forget, or people you forget to follow up with based on your present system? The bottom line is to be organized enough so that you can track your clients orders, your conversations with them, last contact dates, when their birthdays are, when they would need to re-order and more so that you can easily follow up. Once you find it hard to do the above on an excel spreadsheet, then it is time for a CRM like Fiitfu.
Question: I often work at night time, but I don’t want to message or text clients at this late time, what is the best thing for me to do.
Answer: One of the most efficient things you can do is create your emails or text messages at night, but have them sent automatically in the morning. Using multiple ways of following up with a client: text, messenger, email, phone call, will give you the freedom to do some automation in your business. If you have a system like Fiitfu, you can schedule your personal emails to be sent to your clients in the morning . You can also create a series of follow-ups that will occur in your Fiitfu account. This would mean that once you set your system up in Fiitfu once, you can add multiple customers to your series of follow-ups!
Question: I don’t know what to say when following up, what should I do?
Answer: You have to go back and think or research what they ordered in the past, what their interests are, what new products have come out since you talked to them, do you have all the details that you need on this client. If not, this is a great excuse to follow-up with them. If you don’t have something to say, make it up, call and talk about new products, to grab their birthday, to let them know about Black Friday sales, or just to say you apologize for not following up!! Remember, a Follow-up is not always a Sales Call!
Question: What do I do if someone said they want to order, and I followed up with them and I haven’t heard yet.
Answer: It is ok to follow up – don’t be pushy, but think of some ways in which you can ask them again, like, “let me know when you need the products by, and I will give you a date for your last order date”. Use different ways to follow up – Email, or text when you are doing an order, “would you like me to add your order to this order I am doing”. If after 5 follow-ups, (over a couple of weeks)and they haven’t placed their order, you could send one last email saying something like: “I know you wanted to place an order, but I don’t want you to feel pressured. I will connect again with you in the New Year if I don’t hear back from you before November 20 as that would be the last day to get this product to you before Christmas”. Then of course, still contact them at Christmas to say Happy Holidays. In my mind, you never really stop connecting with clients you would like to keep.
Remember, failing to follow up is the quickest way to lose up to 80% of your potential sales. So get out there and start implementing your follow up process! Not sure what your process to success is? Be sure to read our BLOG on Follow Up Process Ideas.
Want to see the Interview Live? WATCH HERE
Join the ELITE SUITE with Brenda Ster to have access to two awesome Master Classes on follow-up (plus a whole lot more!)
- The key to great customer service – Strategy based.
- How to Follow up using Fiitfu – CRM based