The term ghosting is most associated with millennial dating troubles, but it’s not hard to make an association with a date not calling you back and a customer ignoring your email. Having an active customer go dark on you requires a complicated remedy, but it is not entirely impossible to get them back.
There are some steps you can take to actively prevent a customer from ghosting you. Check out these tips on how to stop customers from giving you the silent treatment.
Keep Their Attention!
There are many reasons why a customer would consider ghosting you. If you don’t capture and consistently engage a customer, they are likely to just move you to their spam folder.
Maintaining someone’s attention is becoming increasingly challenging in this day and age, considering shrinking attention spans and the expectation that customer service will be seamless across all channels.
Achieving seamless customer service is not as difficult as it may seem. Consider employing an omnichannel customer service method, like this one by Gamma. This will make you adaptable enough to deliver faster services, giving customers the instant gratification they crave!
Don’t Push Too Hard!
This point may seem to contradict the previous point of being constantly available, but refusing to take no for an answer is a major reason why people will ghost you and your service. Don’t overwhelm your prospects with three emails and two phone calls every day. Instead, let them have the time they need to ponder a decision.
Follow up with your client promptly, but just to remind them you exist and are there if they have any questions. When following up, try and catch them on the phone rather than email – this makes you much harder to ignore.
People are friendlier on the phone than they are over email, as emails are considered official communication in the corporate world, so people are more cautious when talking to vendors.
Customize Your Response!
When you follow up with prospects, are you sending a generic email template, or is it specific to that client’s needs and requirements? Giving them a unique experience with your business will give them a very clear picture of exactly how your services will benefit them.
You could consider sending over a brochure of your services, rather than just a price list, or a detailed description of exactly how you intend to help their business. All of this contributes to the customer saying yes to you, rather than ghosting.
Hopefully, the above advice will help you to increase your customer base and lead to a decrease in the number of emails you send out arriving in someone’s junk mail.
Remember customer service is important at every stage of the acquisition journey – not just when you’re first approaching a potential client. Being on top of your game in this regard will mean that everything else will slowly fall into place, reducing the number of ghosting issues your business has.
