Are Moving Companies Making These B2B Sales Follow-Up Mistakes?

Not every B2B prospect will buy your product or service during the initial conversation. It often takes several contacts to convince a prospect to make a purchase. One study found that the average moving company sale requires five follow ups. In many cases, a sales rep may have to contact a prospect seven or more times to make a sale. While following up with prospects is important, though, it’s best to use the right approach. If you're guilty of making the relocation sale follow-up mistakes described here, you'll struggle to convert prospects into paying customers.

Reading From a Script

There's nothing wrong with using a script as the basis for your sales follow ups, but you shouldn't read from it, word for word. Relocation prospects are more likely to buy your product or service if they can relate to you. Therefore, you must create a genuine and authentic conversation when following up with relocation prospects. If you read from a script, buyers may perceive you as unknowledgeable and unable to relate to their needs, in which case it's doubtful they'll stay on the line, let alone make a purchase.

Not Providing Contact Information

If you call a relocation prospect only to get his or her voicemail, leave your contact name, moving company, phone and even email address in the voicemail. Don't assume that operation managers or office manager will know who you are just by hearing your voice on the message. Even if you've talked to a facility manager or even an office manager in the past, he or she may fail to recognize your voice. And if you don't include your contact information in the voicemail, the prospect won't be able to call you back. A good strategy is to mention your name and phone once at the beginning of the voicemail and again at the end. This helps to reinforce the operation manager’s memory of your contact information, increasing the chance that he or she will call you back. In addition, if the facility manager wants to contact you, repeating it a second time will save them the effort of starting the message from the beginning.

Overlooking Social Media

Yes, you can use social media to follow up with relocation prospects -- and doing so can yield increased sales for your moving company. According to an article published by Forbes, more than three-quarters of sales reps who use social media generate more sales than their counterparts who don't use social media. Whether you prefer Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, consider using social media to follow up with relocation prospects. You can send them direct messages, or you can engage in community discussions on your profile. Either way, social media is a great way to connect and follow up with office managers and facility managers and educate while encouraging them to buy your product or service.

Waiting Too Long

We've talked about this before, but it's worth mentioning again that the longer you wait to follow up with a prospect, the less likely he or she is to make a purchase. Ideally, you should contact the operations manager immediately after you've acquired them as a lead from SalesLeads. But this isn't always possible. To increase your chances of follow-up success, though, you should contact the facilities manager as soon as you've acquired them as a lead. 

Take a look at our time sensitive Office Project Reports. You’ll notice in many of our insights an estimated timeframe shared by the prospect. This will help you to determine the urgency of your phone call.

Overlooking Email

In addition to social media, be sure to utilize email as a sales follow-up channel. Statistics show that email is the second-most common channel used for moving or relocation sales, surpassed only by calling. With email, you can follow up with facility or office managers almost instantly. While it may take 10 minutes or longer to follow up with a prospect by calling him or her, assuming they even answer, it takes just seconds to send an email. And best of all, you can automate this process using customer relationship management (CRM) software with a built-in email marketing tool. The bottom line is that all moving company sales reps should use email to follow up with prospects.

Not Tracking Follow Ups

Because it often requires multiple follow ups to convince an office manager to make a purchase -- five, according to the study cited above -- you'll need to track the number of times that you've followed up with a prospect. Remember, when you use our Office Project Reports, we’ll include the contacts associated with the project.

Again, this is something that a CRM can assist with. Using CRM software, you can automatically track the prospects you've contacted, when you contacted them and other relevant information. If you've followed up with the office manager five times and the operations manager only once, perhaps you should try contacting the operation manager again.

Not Personalizing Follow Ups

A little personalization goes a long way in connecting with prospects and encouraging them to make a purchase. When following up with the operations manager or office manager, don't use the same cookie-cutter message. Rather, you should personalize your follow-up messages to achieve the best results. Mentioning the prospect's name and citing previous communications, for example, will create a stronger connection. As a result, the prospect will feel more confident making a purchase.