Nowadays heaps of online business entrepreneurs make one very common mistake – they are so determined to attract new customers that they forget about taking care of the existing ones. And, de facto, for your business to thrive the customer retention is a crucial issue and cannot be underrated.
Undoubtedly the existing customers matter as they are those who have already decided to trust you, your offer and went for it. Selling anything again to them costs you a few times less than acquiring new ones. And the best thing to do is to attack them with sales follow-ups as soon as they buy.
The period right after the sale has even earned its own name and is often called “the honeymoon phase”. It’s the time when both you and a customer are excited – you have just sold something and the client has just found something they have been looking for. It is a perfect opportunity to persuade the customer to stay with you longer.
What are the benefits of effective follow-up emails
The phrase “honeymoon phase” didn’t just drop down out of the sky. Follow up emails can really make a big difference when it comes to customer satisfaction and retention but many businessmen still underrate their power. Benefits of outstanding follow-up emails are numerous but let me quote you the most important ones.
First of all, you can boost your sales. Well served customers are the ones who are more prone to come back and make a repeat purchase. This way the customers stick around and become regular ones in no time. Moreover, by analyzing the feedback collected from follow-ups you can improve your service and innovate – you know what the customers’ needs are and how to meet them.
Writing sales follow up emails
Sales follow up email has to be concise (no one would read longish blocks of texts), respectful and understandable. Start with a little thank you, and ensure customers about the value you have provided them with. Encourage them nicely to fill in a survey or a poll you sent them as it will be your feedback.
Remember that the start should be catchy and grabbing attention. Whole follow up email should be personalized and convincing but also not overwhelming. You can kindly ask the customer at the end to allow you to communicate with them in the future about special offers or new interesting items or services added. Make your follow up nice, easy to understand but also professional and straightforward in order to leave customers with excellent last impression of you.
How should a follow-up email look like
Apart from superior content, you should take care of the appearance of your follow-ups. Most of the businessmen send out just ordinary, quite generic follow-ups and think that’s enough. Well – not always. As we live in the era of high-quality graphics and nice looking websites the look of your email does matter and you cannot ignore that fact. With that in mind, you are able to outperform the competition and be a step ahead of them.
In order to make your follow up interesting, you should check out the follow-up templates created by professional graphics. They are usually very neat, well thought and have businesslike look. Creating one adjusted for your business is not rocket science and you can create it simply by getting inspired and devoting one or two hours of your time.
When creating one always have in mind your business and your target. Think about what look will suit best both your offer and your customers. Don’t underrate the choice of colors as colors in advertising, of any kind, are always significant and everyone knows that red is for example too aggressive. Make it simple but beautiful at the same time. If you do this way your follow ups will definitely outstand.
The art of follow-ups is very important sales skill mastered very early in each sales rep’s career.
