Follow Up and Its (In)Effectiveness

Salespeople give up on opportunities for several reasons. It’s up to leaders to figure out why and find ways to fix the issues. Consider that 21 deals per day, on average, are just dropped by a salesperson, for one reason or another. They just stop following on those leads and don’t bother to make a second round through them. Say you’ve got a staff of eight salespeople. That’s 168 deals, a day, that you’re missing potential opportunities with.

That is, of course, unless you embrace technology and use your CRM to keep those leads cultivated even when your people drop the ball. Even when your sales team says that someone is out of the market and they stop following up, the technology should be there to encourage people to come back to the market and find a way to convert.

Why salespeople stop following leads

There are several reasons that people don’t follow up on leads, but usually, it boils down to one common issue: there’s too much to do and your team isn’t comprised of superheroes. Where you think people might be slacking or dropping the ball, you will see that it’s just not feasible for everyone to deliver the level of follow-up needed.

The hard part is admitting that there are more customers than a dealership can properly handle. The perfect customer experience is impossible when you have a limited staff, which is where the technology can come in handy. Not all of your leads are created equally. Not everyone is ready to buy now or even in 60 days. You’ll be able to use your technology to tell you what stage customers are at, who is ready to buy, and which leads you can let the CRM cultivate until they decide to convert.

Leads are the only thing that get into the system 100% of the time. Your calls? We’d be generous to say that 5% of those make it into the CRM and get follow-up. Floor ups are a little better, but still only come in around 30% or less, and again that’s being generous. It’s not because of a lack of effort. It’s because of the technology available and the process to get customers into the system.

If it’s not easy, your sales team is going to give up. It takes someone to see, recognize the issue, and then do something about it. That includes implementing technology that will take over where people drop the ball. Before, you were losing a lot of leads to this, but modern CRMs are now smart enough to work the leads even when they’re dropped.

Want to know something? 20% of the deals that are dropped by your sales team will end up buying anyway at some point (somewhere.) If your technology is on point, the number of people that choose you will increase. Here’s an important question to ask yourself:

Do you believe that any member of your team is qualified to give up on a customer?

That’s right, you’re probably shaking your head no. And that’s why you need to check in daily, review and make calls, and make sure that your technology is on point to deliver the best customer experience even when your sales team is overwhelmed or busy with their own efforts.