Follow Up : How important is it

Many a times, lack of training of the frontline employees on the aspect of follow-up is responsible for losing a customer or negative feedback from them. Let us analyse how.

Enquiry follow-up – Sometimes when we call a customer he may not pick up call as may be busy. If this is the case then one must not call a customer continuously, as this would irritate him. Rather one can leave a whatsapp message or an sms telling details about one’s purpose of calling and asking when would be the right time to call him. The message could be like “Sir, this is Rahul from Phoenix Tours & Travels. I called you regarding your query for your Thailand Holiday but could not get through to you. Please let me know when would be the right time to speak to you.”

Now the client might straightaway speak to you the representative but sometimes they ask to be called at a later time. It is better to put an alarm in one’s mobile if there are chances of skipping the time due to the busy office schedule.

I have seen cases where the employee was told to call at 7 30 pm and he knew that at that time he would be on a train journey homebound, but he could not tell the client straight away upfront as he did not have the courage to do so (this happens with juniors in the trade). The result was that he ended up calling the client when he reached home, freshened up, had dinner – at 10 PM. This client did not want to talk him and the company lost a potential customer.

It is very important to create a connect with a customer and be able to bond with him with your body language over the phone which although is invisible, but can be felt.

The same goes when going on a sales call to a client. If you are late or cannot make it, apologise and update the client well in advance. Also, when one has taken the requirements, then too provide the customer a timeframe within which you will get back with the quotation.

The customer asks for changes / clarifications / or has certain questions – here too, many times I have seen employees not responding on time. This is particularly irritating for the client as now, he realises that as he has already booked and signed on the terms and conditions, he is being taken on a ride. This is a very sensitive issue and a lot of importance must be given to “post booking client handling and follow-ups”.

Then there is follow-up regarding payments, visa documentation and lastly handover. All are equally important. Remember the client is paying you for an intangible dream holiday experience . You are the one sitting at the other end, trying your best to make his dream holiday a memorable one and every step of your transaction thus, counts. The business owners / bosses cannot do much here as they simply cannot take note of each and every interaction / step that employees take, so the onus lies more on the employee to improvise and innovate and learn and educate oneself to become different from others so that when the customer enters your office in the future for his next query, he only insists that he wants to be handled by you. If that happens, you know that have the battle is already won.