Following up with people who did NOT schedule

[joey895]

I've never followed up with people who called and didn't schedule because if they didn't schedule I didn't get any of their info and I feel I've been missing out on potential work.

Now I've got an answering service answering my phones and they do an excellent job of recording the name, phone number and the services the customer asked about and even emails from the people who will give them out even if the person does not end up ultimately scheduling with me.

If there is anyone doing this I'd like to get some pointers. How many days later do you call? And what do you say when you call? Would you offer a discount for them to schedule if they haven't already scheduled with somebody else?

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[Hoody]

Hey Joey - I made a form on a half sheet of paper that was basically Name, Address, Phone, Email, Services interested, preferred day and time type of stuff, I'll see if I still have it. When I was getting the messages from the answering service or our internal voicemail I'd fill out a form for each. We ended up making it mandatory that everyone fill those out as every call was taken in case we got the "I'll check with my husband" type responses so we could put them in a stack-able filing shelf. We would follow up within two days of the call(unless of course it was an answering service or voicemail we would call right away). That way we had what they were wanting and any price quotes we had given in case someone was offering a non-typical special to close the sale, anyone could follow up.

 

[joey895]

Good idea.

I'm going to start doing these follow up calls today.

Yesterday there was three calls from customers who did not schedule, it would be great if over the course of a month I could land 20-25% of these type calls.

Oh my, this post got me to look closely at my closing ratio for the first time, pretty much ever.

I went back about a month and I'm only booking about 50% of the calls that come in and lots of those are repeats. If you backed out repeats the percentage would be scary low. Even if I get 20% of the ones I missed it'll still only bring my total to about 60% overall. I didn't realize how bad this was because I'm still managing to run a bit over 20% ahead of last year.

I guess now the question becomes can this be improved with some work on a phone script or do I need to drop my prices, maybe run a new customer special or something.

Ps I just increased my prices fairly substantially about 2 months ago, although I think my prices are pretty moderate. I'm at $99 for first 2 rooms and $30 per room after that.

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[Hoody]

If you've recently raised your prices I wouldn't lower them unless you're using it for 4 and 6 month post cards to try to get your client base to clean with you twice a year. I think you'll devalue your service and you should keep the course. You can make and keep more money charging a bit more and cleaning for fewer clients in the year.

The phone script route seems like the best idea to me.

 

[TomKing]

Here is what I would do,

1. figure out how you can get a live company employee answering the phone.

2. take all information and send out a estimate using service monster.

3. Follow up within 24 hours on every job that does not book. If it came in at 9 am call at end of the day or 9am next day. insist you send them the price in writing.

We book 75% for employees and 85% as owners.

If you are losing 30% of your calls you could pay for a employee just with what you are losing.

Do the math 3 lost calls a week at a average $250 is a 40 hour employee at $12 per hour.
The cost for that employee would be around $600 you have $150 for hard cost on the truck.
If you gave then 1% of booked you could get a salary around $30k

Think about the quality of person you could get for $30k
Think of what that employee could be doing for you.
Think of how much you do at night that you would not have to.
Think about the out bound calling and follow up quality calls they could make.
Think about the post card reminders you could have them send out.
Think about how they could prepare your paper work for the next day.
Think about how the y could order all your chemicals.
Think about how clean your office would be.
Think about how professional you would sound?
Think about the upselling on the phone that they could do.
Think about this is the way off the truck

Think about it!

 

[joey895]

Here is what I would do,

1. figure out how you can get a live company employee answering the phone.

2. take all information and send out a estimate using service monster.

3. Follow up within 24 hours on every job that does not book. If it came in at 9 am call at end of the day or 9am next day. insist you send them the price in writing.

We book 75% for employees and 85% as owners.

If you are losing 30% of your calls you could pay for a employee just with what you are losing.

Do the math 3 lost calls a week at a average $250 is a 40 hour employee at $12 per hour.
The cost for that employee would be around $600 you have $150 for hard cost on the truck.
If you gave then 1% of booked you could get a salary around $30k

Think about the quality of person you could get for $30k
Think of what that employee could be doing for you.
Think of how much you do at night that you would not have to.
Think about the out bound calling and follow up quality calls they could make.
Think about the post card reminders you could have them send out.
Think about how they could prepare your paper work for the next day.
Think about how the y could order all your chemicals.
Think about how clean your office would be.
Think about how professional you would sound?
Think about the upselling on the phone that they could do.
Think about this is the way off the truck

Think about it!

I've been thinking about that very thing. I think I'm going to try to ease my way into it. I've got a buddy whose wife only works a couple of days a week and her job entails a lot of phone time and office work and she has a friendly voice, I think I'll see if she is interested in doing office duties for me a couple of days a week.

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