A repeatable process that protects opportunities without making customer relationships feel scripted.
Almost nobody needs convincing that follow-up matters. Your people already know.
The challenge is remembering to do it while everything else is happening. A customer is waiting on a quote. Another wants a call when a machine arrives. Someone needs an update on a repair. A special-order part is coming in. A financing application needs attention. A customer said to call them next week.
Meanwhile the phone is ringing, there are people at the counter, technicians need answers, freight is on the dock, and the day keeps moving.
The problem is almost never a lack of good intentions. It is that memory has become the follow-up system.
Memory works until it doesn’t
Experienced people can hold an impressive amount in their heads. But there is a ceiling, and the busier things get, the more likely a small commitment is to fall off it.
That is especially true when the customer does not call back right away. The employee moves to the next thing. Three days later, nobody remembers that somebody was waiting on us.
This is how good opportunities and good customer experiences disappear — not through neglect, but through volume.
A follow-up needs five things
At its simplest, every follow-up needs five pieces. That is enough structure to take most of the weight off memory.
The method can be simple. A notebook can work. What matters is that the commitment lives somewhere other than in one person’s head.
The event should create the next step
One useful way to think about follow-up is to attach it to whatever just happened. Every one of these events already implies a next action — the question is whether anything creates it.
When the process creates that next action on its own — whether through a system or simply a habit everyone follows — nobody has to remember every promise they made.
Not every customer needs the same follow-up
A good process should not turn customer relationships into a script. People can tell when a conversation is being read to them.
A commercial customer buying their tenth unit does not need what a first-time homeowner needs. Someone who said they would call when they are ready does not need repeated sales calls. A person waiting on a backordered part does need to hear from you when the date changes.
The point is not to contact everyone constantly. It is to make sure important commitments do not disappear by accident.
Consider the difference between two situations. In the first, the customer was told someone would call. Nobody did, and eventually the customer called you. In the second, the employee gets a reminder, picks up the phone, and says: I told you I would check back today. The part still is not here, but I wanted you to know where it stands.
Nothing about the underlying situation changed. The part is still late. The customer’s experience is completely different, because they did not have to chase you for information.
Managers need visibility too
A follow-up process is useful to managers as well — not because anyone needs to count phone calls.
The useful questions are: are quotes sitting without a next step? Are customers waiting on information we promised? Are follow-ups going overdue? Do we lose sales for the same reasons repeatedly? Do certain kinds of opportunities consistently get stuck?
Those patterns say something about the business. Maybe response time is slow. Maybe a handoff between departments is unclear. Maybe salespeople are working without information they need. Maybe customers postpone for the same reason again and again.
Follow-up creates customer contact. It also creates knowledge about how the business runs.
Start simple and make it dependable
There is no prize for the most elaborate follow-up system. If someone needs a training manual to record a customer call, the process will not survive contact with a busy Saturday.
Get a simple version working and dependable first. Improve it after. That is almost always better than a detailed process that looks impressive and becomes one more thing people work around.
And this reaches well past sales. Service needs follow-up. Parts needs follow-up. Warranty claims need follow-up. Accounting sometimes needs follow-up. Any time someone says they will get back to a customer, there is now an open commitment, and a well-run business has somewhere to put it.
The best follow-up system is not the one with the most features. It is the one that helps good people keep the promises they already meant to keep.
Area: Revenue — opportunities, quotes, and customer commitments.
Applies across: Operations and Administration — every department makes promises that need keeping.
Read next: You Cannot Sell Your Way to a Better Year — what all of this looks like from the owner’s chair, with the numbers from one dealer’s books.
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