One of my biggest bug bears in life are people who don’t get back to me. Now I know people are very busy, but if I am trying to buy goods or services off them should they not be making me ‘the customer who wants to buy’ a priority?!
I always teach as part of relationship building in sales to do what you say you are going to do. You would be amazed how many people don’t do this. To me this is unbelievable! Surely this is an expectation as a customer, not just good customer service and trust building?
If you are lucky enough to get great inbound sales leads do not waste them, deal with them effectively and in a timely manner. Businesses spend a fortune on marketing to generate leads, don’t waste the opportunities that come your way by not getting back to people.
There are various ways your customer can get in touch with you these days: Social Media, email, website and good old-fashioned phone, to name but a few. So to say “I’m sorry, we don’t check the messages regularly on our Facebook site” doesn’t really cut the mustard with me! I am not impressed and will probably go elsewhere.
Is this what some of your customers are doing?
A Harvard Business Review study showed:
“Responding to Leads within an Hour Generates 7x the Conversations”
A source at Inside Sales says
“35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first”
How quickly are you responding?
Let’s take as an example a customer looking for a conference venue or hotel. They may enquire at many venues for the same event, but you can bet your bottom dollar that they will more than likely not have the time to chase up those that don’t respond or be very impressed if you respond last or past the deadline. It builds the wrong impression and rightly or wrongly makes them think that their event on the day will be given the same low priority.
My advice to you is to go away and have a look at the processes you have in place for how you receive and respond to all types of enquiries and make sure they are watertight. Decide on response times and how you can handle incoming enquiries better, so that you stand out from your competitors and EXCEED your customers expectations.
What do you think? What are your bug bears? What do you think should be included as simple expectations? Let me know your thoughts.
Need inspiration?
For more information on how People Buy People can help your hotel and events venue or with your Processes and Enquiry Handling Sales Skills, please get in touch via email or give me a call on 07711999123.
