What do you do if your customer doesn’t respond to your quote? This can be frustrating of course. You don’t know how much effort and persistence to put into your communication. You don’t want to irritate them but then by the same token you’ve put some time and effort into quoting them so you don’t want to walk away meekly.
Ways you get to quote
There are a number of ways you may have got to the point where you provided them with a quote
- They approached you. Possibly by phone or email.
- You contacted them and they expressed interest in what you have to offer. A product or service.
- You’ve sent them a quote speculatively with no recent communication between you.
Admittedly if they’ve called you and they were ‘just shopping around’ you can probably safely assume that they’ve bought elsewhere. If it’s someone you’d not spoken to previously and you sell a low value product, chances are you’d be wasting your time pursuing them. However if you sell higher value items and this is someone you’ve dealt with and perhaps sold to before, then you may want to contact them a few more times. You will probably need to do this using a combination of telephone calls and email. Whatever works. I would always recommend a mixed communication style. Some customers will be more responsive to emails. They can respond out of hours for instance. Other people will perhaps prefer telephone contact as it is direct and quick. Don’t expect them to call you though. It’s easier if you’re proactive and call them. You can always leave a message asking them to call back.
In my line of work I generally on low volumes, high value. Consequently I can afford to spend more time following up. You certainly don’t want to call them or indeed anyone too often. See the blog entry on not calling too often.
If you’ve sent them a quote speculatively then you can’t really expect a reply can you? Your approach to them is unsolicited and so they don’t owe you the right of reply.
What if you’ve spent considerable time on this quote?
If what you offer is high value or consultative in nature you may have spent considerable time preparing this quotation or proposal. Consequently you may feel you at least DESERVE a response. Even if it is a ‘No’. I know I do! Not getting a response means you can’t really put it to bed. At least if they engage with you and turn you down with a reason – you can at least close it off and move on.
Can you force a reply?
Clearly not so you have to be patient and go with what they want. You could write to them appealing to their sense of professionalism and fair play. I sometimes use this approach. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Ultimately you have to accept that it is up to them. Arguably more importantly you can also assume that they’re not going to buy from you at the moment. Ultimately this is all that matters. Even if it’s not so neat and tidy for you. And some feedback is always preferable to none.
Training
To Market provides training for outbound telemarketing and telesales teams across the Midlands. Birmingham, Coventry, Daventry, Nottingham, Derby, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Leicester, Loughborough, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Northampton, Solihull, Lichfield, Cambridge as well as wider parts of the East And West Midlands. Contact us via our contact page to get in touch. While we don’t specifically cover the topic of following up proposals we do inevitably end up having many sales related conversations during our 2 days together.
The Book
To get a whole host of ideas why not buy the book? Using the phone to sell – how to sell more to more people more often. Buy directly through the site for an autographed copy.