As a consultant, there’s a lot of back and forth between you and your clients. Sometimes, emails go unanswered and things fall through the cracks - but 80% of sales require 5 follow-up calls after the meeting, so it's important to keep up your persistence and stay connected. With a client work management platform, you can easily keep track of all client communication in real-time to avoid missing a time-critical response. Furthermore, you can follow these 3 steps to follow up with clients, with ease:
If you need to touch base with a prospect or client, keep your follow-up conversational in tone. No one wants to feel like they’re hearing from a robot. An example of this would be to use contractions like 'we're' instead of 'we are' to strike a conversational tone. Everyone’s inbox is already inundated with jargon-filled business-type emails. Also, it’s helpful to have a sales with a two-way sync email stream that lets you see all touch points you (or your team) have had with a client. That way, you’ll minimize double-touches and avoid looking disorganized.
When you’re following up after meeting a potential client in person, keep your communication short and sweet. Drop a line about something specific you chatted about and if it’s relevant, remind them where you met. You should schedule this first follow-up no more than 48 hours after first meeting them. This is a crucial step and doing it in a timely manner can mean the difference between new business or not. Never let a follow up like this fall through the cracks—with a smart technology platform, you can set triggers to automatically prompt you to take the next necessary step.
A survey found that 52 percent of people expect to get a response to a work-related email within 12 - 24 hours. It isn't hard to understand why. A prompt reply conveys that you're keeping your clients top of mind and prioritize your correspondence with them. Wait too long, and you risk them thinking they simply aren't worth your time.
When you next reach out to a sales prospect, you need to provide unique value early on or risk annoying them. With so many consultants offering their services, it's imperative to show early on what makes you different and what you can offer another consultant can't. The email should be content-based, like focusing on an area of your proposal they seemed particularly interested in. It doesn’t need to be complicated—think something along the lines of an email with links to further information. Again, keeping track of everything that’s been said is crucial, and having a fully integrated smart CRM to automatically track and sync all your client records, with automated notifications will help you achieve growth.
One of the most important aspects of business is managing customer relationships and keeping these points in mind will improve your chances of converting potential clients into happy customers. Quickly following up with clients not only saves you time, it strengthens your professional relationship. Sign up today for a free trial of Accelo and see how following up with clients can be so much easier!
