Ask IH: Following up — how do you handle it?
When I'm looking for feedback and talking to potential customers, I've found that I need to email everyone 2 or 3 times before I get a response. How do you handle this? How long do you wait to email them back?
I always feel like I'm bothering them and I sometimes lose track of who I've emailed. Being introverted doesn't help.
And this isn't lack of interest. Some of these folks are people who emailed me out of the blue to tell me how excited they were about my product. Doesn't matter. Still need 2 or 3 emails to reach 'em.
I know there are some automated solutions, but that's way more then what I need. I'm using a list and calendar reminders to keep track of things now.
I'm actually find the psychology of this – how do you think about people when you follow up – more interesting then the tactical elements of it.
I just keep an email folder (follow-up 1, follow-up 2) etc. I'm also not very good at this, so interested in learning more.
Some reading: https://themagicemail.com
This email seems a little rude to me (particularly if you're cold emailing people about a service, whereas in my case I'm trying to follow up with potential clients who I've already exchanged emails with). I write a little more, but it's a good starting place.
See also this Derek Sivers article: https://sivers.org/3in
This is a very Hacker News-ey comment. It's also (at least in the OP's case as described above) unequivocally wrong.
@JeremyS: If a potential customer has reached out and expressed interest in your product (and especially if you genuinely believe you can save them time, money, or add value to their life in other ways), then of course you can send them a few emails if they don't respond to your first one. Actually, you should feel morally-obligated to follow up. After all, you're trying to help someone who has expressed an interest in being helped.
Try something like Close.io - you'll thank me in a few weeks.
Good luck!
I can't echo this advice enough, Louis is spot on. +1 for Close.io (#neversalesforce), but it is expensive. Google Inbox has a great snooze feature, and Boomerang for Gmail is another way to solve the same problem.
Thanks Louis. That's a great way to look at it. They may not want to look at it right now but what I have will help them. I should tell them. Not just should – *morally obligated *.
It's not fun having to follow up but it's not personal. People may still be very interested in my product, just not at the exact moment I emailed them.
I'll check out close.io as well.
I'm comfortable with the truth - but very wary of people who claim to be the sole arbiter of it (without evidence or overwhelmingly convincing credentials).
Not sure of the frequency in general. But as in the OP's case (ie when I have contacted a company, expressed interest in their product/service, and given them my email to be contacted by) then I would guess it is pretty much 100% of the time.
Depends on my schedule. Often, I respond to the first email. Sometimes I'm busy, I forget to reply or it isn't a great fit for right now. So I don't reply until the second, third or sometimes even the eighth email. If I'm really not interested, I may not reply at all.
I have about a decade of experience as a founder/salesperson seeing firsthand the effects of following up via email. As long as the content is appropriate, the potential customer has opted-in, and it is easy to opt-out, I'm convinced multiple email follow-ups is an overwhelming net-positive for all concerned.
If you want to convince me otherwise, you're definitely not going about it the right way (in terms of providing evidence or establishing your credibility).
I don't want to convince a person that denies obvious things.
It's just a waste of my time.
The evidence - right here, just read it again:
Let me help. He's 100% right. If you aren't doing this, you have an easy way to increase your revenue substantially.
This is one of the biggest hurdles to get over as a technical person handling sales, and I fit this bill and can add 7 more years of experience to the table to support Louis. It feels uncomfortable, but I'd need multiple sets of hands and feet to count how many times people have thanked me for following up 5+ times, whether they purchased or not.
A non-trivial number end up customers.
Thanks JDR. I guess it can take 5+ emails. But worth keeping in mind that even if they don't want to hear from you right when you send the email, it doesn't mean they don't want to hear from you at all.
You got to get them on there before you can get feedback from your site. Difficult to test a site or feature without telling anyone.
I actually tried a feedback widget in an earlier prototype – Hotjar's specifically. I honestly didn't get much out of it. I think 3 people out of a hundred clicked it. I guess could have made it more obvious, but it already looked distracting. I want the obvious parts to be for the app's functionality.
That said, I will have some place where people can give feedback on my site, but I don't expect a lot of response.
Okay, try to think in the following way - you want to get something (a feedback) from people but you don't give anything in exchange. Why do people should waste their time for nothing? The perspective to make the product (yours) they are using better is too far and vague, especially if they are satisfied enough.
If you would give them something for their feedback (discount, lottery, testimonial etc.) you would have much higher rate of responses.
Btw your product looks very cool (mockup3d)!