Think 2 days, 2 weeks and 2 months as your rule for following up.
Each contact you make is designed to help you move from thanking the customer for their business to securing more business.
Two days after the customer makes their purchase, reach out to them with a phone call thanking them for buying and making sure they received what they wanted with regard to the benefits they were looking to fill.
The objective of this call is to not only have the customer appreciating you more, but also to begin understanding better their needs.
Use the call to help identify another need with which you might be able to help them, either now or in the future.
Two weeks after the purchase, call the customer again and ask for their feedback as to how things are going. Your first objective is to keep your name and the name of your company in the forefront of the customer’s mind. You also want to begin building more on needs the customer might have.
Use this call as the basis to determine your next steps. If needs arise you can help with, then move forward immediately with getting another meeting set up with the customer.
Where most salespeople fall down is they fail to stay in contact with the customer after a period of a couple of weeks. This is where the third “2” comes into play.
Two months after the purchase, you reach back out to the customer again with a phone call.
In each of these steps, it’s important to realize contact must be by phone, because you want to have dialogue with the customer. You’re not going to get that with email, so don’t think for a moment that you’ve done your job by emailing a customer.
When you call the customer at the 2-month mark, your objective is to be direct in exploring the needs they had identified when they made their first purchase, as well as any new needs or desired benefits they shared with you on the previous calls.
Your objective is to use the call to both further your relationship with the customer and also develop a reason to meet soon.
Does this system work?
Yes! Big time, in fact. It works for two simple reasons. One, it disciplines the salesperson to reach out to the customer. Two, it relies on the telephone.
You can secure repeat sales from existing customers if you follow the 2/2/2 rule.
Copyright 2013, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
One Response
Mark Hunter again & again & again recommends & teaches ultra-successful selling techniques. These tips, also, are terrific methods to use. I will start putting them into action in my selling.