A black hole is eating my customers

[HawkinsPC]

Second "I'm on my way" call this afternoon. No shows. Blah. I'm beginning to think people are just calling to get prices...

 

[ell]

Second "I'm on my way" call this afternoon. No shows. Blah. I'm beginning to think people are just calling to get prices...

Agh I hate that, I work by apt only and people who don't bother to call and cancel drive me nuts. I had one that did it twice in one day!!

 

[NYJimbo]

I hate when they sound really enthusiastic about it and you are sure you got the job, but then, nothing....

Sometimes the come into the store "I was just driving by and ..." ask a bunch of questions, they love the answers you give them, love the price, ask you what your hours are, ask if they drop off at X-hour can they pick up at Y-hour, tell you "See you tomorrow" and then, nothing.....

I like to assume they didn't just go somewhere else but rather died in a horrific car accident while on their way back here. I REALLY like to assume that.

 

[ell]

I hate when they sound really enthusiastic about it and you are sure you got the job, but then, nothing....

Sometimes the come into the store "I was just driving by and ..." ask a bunch of questions, they love the answers you give them, love the price, ask you what your hours are, ask if they drop off at X-hour can they pick up at Y-hour, tell you "See you tomorrow" and then, nothing.....

I like to assume they didn't just go somewhere else but rather died in a horrific car accident while on their way back here. I REALLY like to assume that.

I think they just love to pick our brains then compliment us and go home and try to fix it themselves....in which case we'll probably eventually see them anyways

 

[Larry Sabo]

I had a new customer last week showed up on the dot! E-mailed to apologize that he was going to be 10 minutes late picking up his system. I tend to be the same way and told him I appreciated his punctuality.

 

[colonydata]

have you tried following up? I'm sure 9 out of 10 of those follow up calls will lead to nothing, but if you convert just one of them to an invoice. A minute long follow up call for each will more than pay for itself.

 

[NYJimbo]

have you tried following up? I'm sure 9 out of 10 of those follow up calls will lead to nothing, but if you convert just one of them to an invoice. A minute long follow up call for each will more than pay for itself.

I agree it could pay for itself, but when 9 out of 10 lead to nothing it can become exhausting. Besides, they have to leave contact info and most times its just a quick call or walk in. If someone calls for info how often do you ask "Whats your name and phone number ?"

 

[colonydata]

I agree it could pay for itself, but when 9 out of 10 lead to nothing it can become exhausting. Besides, they have to leave contact info and most times its just a quick call or walk in. If someone calls for info how often do you ask "Whats your name and phone number ?"

Caller ID

 

[NYJimbo]

Caller ID

A guy named "Vignesh" called me today for a DC jack quote. His caller ID showed he worked at some office building, the number he gave me to call back was his own. Do you really just randomly call back people based on caller ID if they didn't intentionally leave you their number ?

Seems pretty creepy if I called someone and they knew they didn't leave me their phone number.
"How did you get my number ?". So, no I wont call someone for a follow up based on the caller ID I saw when they first called.

 

[frederick]

I agree it could pay for itself, but when 9 out of 10 lead to nothing it can become exhausting. Besides, they have to leave contact info and most times its just a quick call or walk in. If someone calls for info how often do you ask "Whats your name and phone number ?"

If I've been on the phone with them for more than 5 minutes, I will ask them what their name is at a minimum. If the call hits 10 minutes, I say to them "how about this, lets schedule for you to come in or me to come to you and we can discuss this more in depth, and I'll be happy to answer your questions".

This pulls them in. I wont call someone back via caller ID. But I do make notes that Joe Smith, from XYZ or in Glendale, AZ called about a new router (or whatever). If I can get their phone number from them, not the caller ID, I'll add that in too. But I like to always close with something that's going to pull them in. Especially when I say "I can come to you". They like to hear that a lot for some reason

 

[NYJimbo]

If I've been on the phone with them for more than 5 minutes, I will ask them what their name is at a minimum. If the call hits 10 minutes, I say to them "how about this, lets schedule for you to come in or me to come to you and we can discuss this more in depth, and I'll be happy to answer your questions".

These are not 5 or 10 minute calls.

 

[ell]

A guy named "Vignesh" called me today for a DC jack quote. His caller ID showed he worked at some office building, the number he gave me to call back was his own. Do you really just randomly call back people based on caller ID if they didn't intentionally leave you their number ?

Seems pretty creepy if I called someone and they knew they didn't leave me their phone number.
"How did you get my number ?". So, no I wont call someone for a follow up based on the caller ID I saw when they first called.

Exactly the way I feel, unless I know them ofcourse. I don't think I would like any business doing that to me either.

 

[colonydata]

not advocating blanket cold calling. but if you throw out the obvious price shoppers, and hagglers. It's hard to quantify what all goes into the decision on if I should follow up. If they say so and so referred me to you, or they are from my church, or we have a mutual friend or acquaintance (which happens a lot, maybe it's being in a small rural southern community but I think my calls tend to be on average warmer than most) I almost always follow up. If they are a business I almost always follow up.

But like I said it's a judgement call. Maybe the culture is different but in the south most people identify themselves before you get down to business.

also most of my calls if they are not date/time certain I will slip in "alright I'll try to follow up with you in a couple days if we do not speak before then." most of the time they will say "I am in the phonebook/ or did my number show up for you?" I've had a very low number of people say "no I'll call you".

 

[Digital Sage]

I'll try to run conversation like this :

1. Hi phase : Customer explains need.
2. Details : I ask what's happening with computer, they go into specifics, sometimes need prodding. I confirm back to them what they've said in other words, if it's a known issue I'll explain it briefly.
3. Confirm need and book : explain we can help with that, where are you located (I'm onsite), get location, explain I can come to fix, would you like to book an appointment?
4. End phase. Thank you, give them a time (make it a half hour window), see them soon, etc.

Most calls take 5 mins or less, it's quote routine. If they ramble I'll interrupt and move them to the next phase with enthusiasm

Because I have their address, name, and phone number they very rarely pike. Perhaps even if you're a store, that might help them think they need to come... Pressure is on! Penalty? No, but we like to have all your details ready so when you come in, we will have you booked in as fast as possible... We do get quite busy at times. Get a commitment from them, ask them to come between 11-12, whenever suits them, but make a window.

 

[untoldtech]

you should never be on the phone more than 1-2minutes or they're just wasting your time. There was one guy on here that had a really good point about making friends with the customer asking them questions like 'how'd the damage happen' you can build some reputation and that technique works but I usually do that under 2 minutes. Anything above 2 minutes is a tire kicker looking for free advice. I stop the constant questions with 'I'd really love to tell you but without spending time with the computer it could be anything'. I throw out like 5 generic answers with no extended details. This way you're not giving them an answer but you ARE giving AN answer so they know you know something and might be willing to bring it in.

I used to make my techs take the calls when I'm in but lately I've been doing it because I'm 100x more skilled at making people comfortable to bring something in. My techs tend to bumble because some of them are young and I think that scares some people.

 

[acesdeals]

if somebody does not show, perhaps they forgot or lost the address or phone # and if you call them they may come in

however i consider this desperate and it may show to the customer

 

[glennd]

i get lots of no shows. i almost always go through the paranoia anxiety phase of maybe they heard something bad about me or they know that customer where the motherboard fried itself and they blamed me for it. after a few valium i realise it's probably more likely the problem magically corrected itself or they discovered they haven't got money this week or a friend fixed it for them or a dozen other possibilities. that's just the way of the business.

 

[callthatgirl]

I hate when they sound really enthusiastic about it and you are sure you got the job, but then, nothing....

I've been learning a few lessons lately. I don't cold call, so all my leads are inbound and that I have to sharpen my sales techniques a lot more.

People call for info, we schedule a phone discussion to figure out what their needs are.

Usually i just emailed them our info and said get back to me. I found that this sucks. -Not many call back!

Now I will send to them, tell them they have a few days to review and then we will schedule another discussion before I email it off. They can at that point, cancel the appt.

then during that 2nd discussion, I land the job or I don't. Then I will know.

I am tired of tire kickers and my pricing is fine, so it's not that.

 

[Krynn72]

We get a lot of these too, but then we also get a lot of people walk into the shop every week saying "Hi, I called a couple weeks ago about x-problem with my n-device... do you remember?" After we look at them blankly for a second they'll quickly describe the issue to us and we give them the 'ol "Oh Yeah! I remember! Remind me again what exactly happens?" and we go from there. I wouldn't count them lost to the cosmos, just stuck in a long detour. Can't risk getting anywhere near those damn black holes you know.

 

[TechLady]

you should never be on the phone more than 1-2minutes or they're just wasting your time. There was one guy on here that had a really good point about making friends with the customer asking them questions like 'how'd the damage happen' you can build some reputation and that technique works but I usually do that under 2 minutes. Anything above 2 minutes is a tire kicker looking for free advice.

I think this is generally correct, in my experience. In fact sometimes it seems like the ones that ask the 1,000,000 questions are not the easiest to deal with later. The only exception might be a client that was a referral from a longtime, solid client and is just a bit of a nervous nelly. I usually give referrals a bit of slack. But yeah...over five minutes and they're not a referral...you'll never see them.