I was having lunch with a customer last week – the sales manager of a security integration company. He was telling me the story about one of his sales people not being able to get an appointment with a specific customer. The sales manager told his sales person, with a bit of frustration: “Ok, I’ll see him tomorrow.” He then did this…
The sales manager emailed the customer: “I’ll be in your area tomorrow and will be dropping by. I hope you’ll have a few minutes.” Guess what? The customer got back to him with: “Great, what time will you be here?”
Think about your schedule for a second. If someone calls or emails you for an appointment, you have to check your calendar, think about the time it’ll take, and then respond with an email or a return call. That’s likely not going to happen. It’s not that you don’t want to meet with the person, but you just can’t get wrapped up thinking about your calendar right now. It’s the same with our prospects and customers. A lot of times, it’s not that they don’t want to meet with you – they just don’t feel like coordinating time on their calendar and responding. After a few hours, your request gets forgotten or lost in their inbox.
Idea: Don’t make it hard on your customers. Take the burden of scheduling a meeting off of their shoulders and let them know you’ll be dropping by. In the example above, all the customer had to do was be there. That’s it. Try this technique. It won’t be perfect, but using it every now and then will definitely increase your call ratio.
