Making a great follow-up call after your initial sales pitch is essential to sealing the deal with your potential customers. Show them that you’re serious about doing business with them by preparing to answer any questions they may have, and being ready to take their order if they’re ready to buy.
Why follow-up calls are important
- It shows your interest in helping your customer and wanting to see them succeed.
- It helps build a relationship with your customer.
- It helps close more sales.
- It helps resolve any issues or concerns your customer may have.
- It helps you get feedback about your product or service.
- It helps increase customer loyalty and retention.
- It helps you stay top of mind with your customers.
- It helps you generate referrals and word-of-mouth marketing.
What to do before making a follow-up call
Sales representatives often make follow-up calls in the hope of persuading potential customers to buy their product or service.
To start off, we can’t stress enough the importance of staying organised. Keep track of who you’ve called and when, so you can follow up at the right time. This also helps avoid overlap, which can be annoying for potential customers. Use a lead management system to ensure you’re on top of it all.
Now that you know who and when you should follow up with, it’s important to do your research and have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. Always plan your follow-up pitch carefully and make sure that you are familiar with the potential customer’s needs and requirements. This will help keep the conversation on track and avoid any awkward pauses.
What to do during a follow-up call
Even if you have the perfect sales pitch, it’s not going to close the deal if you don’t follow up with your potential customers. Don’t rush to make the follow-up call but don’t wait too long either. Ideally, you should make it within three days to a week of your initial pitch.
Here are some tips for making a great follow-up call:
- Be polite and courteous
- During the follow-up call, be respectful of the other person’s time and listen carefully to what they have to say. Even if they take no interest, thank them for their time. You never know when you might cross paths again.
- Be persistent, but not pushy
- There’s a fine line between persistence and pushiness, and you want to make sure you stay on the right side of it. Keep calling until you get a response, but don’t keep harassing them if they’re not interested.
- Ask questions
- Show that you’re interested in the customer’s needs and wants. Asking questions also helps to keep the conversation flowing.
- Be prepared to answer questions
- The customer is likely to have their own questions, so be prepared with answers. If you don’t know the answer to something, be honest and let them know you’ll find out and get back to them.
- Make a strong case for why they should buy from you
- During the follow-up call, remind the other person why they should choose your product or service over the competition. Stress the benefits of doing business with you and highlight any recent successes you’ve had.
- Don’t try to sell them on anything new
- Stick to what you originally talked about and don’t try to introduce any new products or services. This is a surefire way to confuse and turn the potential customer off. Opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell will come when the time is right in the future.
- Take notes
- Jot down key points from the conversation so you can remember them later. This will come in handy if you need to follow up on anything.
- Close the deal
- If everything goes well during the follow-up call, don’t hesitate to ask for the sale. Be clear about the next step and make sure they understand what they’ll be missing out on if they don’t buy from you.
By following these tips, you can increase your chances of making a successful follow-up call and closing the deal.
Sample scripts for a follow-up call
- “Hi [name], just following up on our conversation from the other day. Wanted to make sure I had all of the details straight and see if there was anything else you needed from me.”
- “Hi [name], it’s been a few days since we talked and I wanted to make sure that I followed up with what we talked about. Did you have a chance to think about it and if so, what are your thoughts?”
- “Hi [name], just wanted to check in with you and see how things were going. Have you had a chance to take a look at the proposal I sent over? If not, no problem, just let me know when you’re ready and we can go over it.”
Or if they didn’t answer your call, you might want to drop them a message similar to this …
Hi [name],
I wanted to make sure to follow up with you after our call the other day. It was great to learn more about [their business needs] and how [you might be able to help them]. I just wanted to make sure that you had everything you needed from us and see if there was anything else we could do to move forward with the project. Is there anything else you need from us? Is there a time that would work best to have another call? Please let me know and thank you for your time.
Best,
[Your name]
What to do after the follow-up call
After the follow-up call, it is important to send a thank-you message via email or WhatsApp. This message should be brief and polite, thanking the person for their time and for considering your product or service. You may also want to include a brief summary of what was discussed during the call.
If you do not hear back from the person after sending the thank-you message, it is best to give them some time before following up again. However, if you still have not heard back after a week or two, you may want to try reaching out again. It is possible that they simply got busy and forgot to respond, so a polite reminder may be all that is needed.
If you are still not able to get in touch with the person after multiple attempts (i.e. more than 8 times), it is probably best to move on. There are many other potential customers out there, so don’t waste your time chasing someone who is not interested.
Convert potential customers into actual customers
When you make your initial sales pitch, you may have planted the seed for a future sale. If you want to increase the chances of closing that deal, then it’s crucial to follow up with your potential customer in a timely and effective manner. Implement any of these guidelines today and improve your chances of converting potential customers into actual customers.
All the best, we’re rooting for you!
