Ask HN: How do you handle customer “ghosting”?
To provide some context, I am the founder of an enterprise SaaS company. We have had quite a few customers - after expressing gushing delight over our offering - just go silent. No responses to emails or phone calls. How do you handle such situations?
5 comments
Wait some time.
Make sure you are prospecting well. Do not let time sinks take away from filling your pipe.
Then, send them a "let us not waste one another's time" email or two.
Basically ask whether they want, need contact. No pressure, just want to make sure the activity makes sense for everyone.
This often works. When it does, you get clarity on what makes sense, and often why.
When it doesn't, put those people on low rotation, a ping every few months. Include some news, thing of value and well wishes.
They either unsub, or respond eventually.
By this stage, it should be background activity. Not a time sink.
Make sure you are prospecting well. Do not let time sinks take away from filling your pipe.
Then, send them a "let us not waste one another's time" email or two.
Basically ask whether they want, need contact. No pressure, just want to make sure the activity makes sense for everyone.
This often works. When it does, you get clarity on what makes sense, and often why.
When it doesn't, put those people on low rotation, a ping every few months. Include some news, thing of value and well wishes.
They either unsub, or respond eventually.
By this stage, it should be background activity. Not a time sink.
I think the honesty of this approach could be refreshing
It works. We have had many sales come in up to a couple years after ghosting.
People get busy, initiatives change, management teams change, company gets bought... newbie shows up, gets excited. Anything can happen.
You just never know.
But, what you can know is your pipe. Build it always, have a simple, honest process for managing who goes through it.
What you can also know is people really do buy from who they like too. Those long term, "thought they were gone" sales came in, and many of them cited the news, well wishes and friendly engagement as factors.
They remember who took the time to both understand them and treat them like humans.
Honest approaches can really help. The sales process is not a bad thing. Letting people know it is OK to navigate it, communicate, etc... means more of them will.
Where that happens, your time is spent more efficiently, and that leads to more deals / person.
People are where they are. It is actually rare to "drive revenue" without ugly tradeoffs like devaluing the product, or turning people off.
In almost every case where revenue is driven this way, one could qualify people better, handle them in an honest way process wise, and a bigger pipe outcome is the same or more revenue wise.
People get busy, initiatives change, management teams change, company gets bought... newbie shows up, gets excited. Anything can happen.
You just never know.
But, what you can know is your pipe. Build it always, have a simple, honest process for managing who goes through it.
What you can also know is people really do buy from who they like too. Those long term, "thought they were gone" sales came in, and many of them cited the news, well wishes and friendly engagement as factors.
They remember who took the time to both understand them and treat them like humans.
Honest approaches can really help. The sales process is not a bad thing. Letting people know it is OK to navigate it, communicate, etc... means more of them will.
Where that happens, your time is spent more efficiently, and that leads to more deals / person.
People are where they are. It is actually rare to "drive revenue" without ugly tradeoffs like devaluing the product, or turning people off.
In almost every case where revenue is driven this way, one could qualify people better, handle them in an honest way process wise, and a bigger pipe outcome is the same or more revenue wise.
Following up is vital in sales and should be built into every sales routine.
Sometimes it's just not top priority for the customer or they get distracted. Sometimes, like taxes, it's on their to do list, but they procrastinate on it until it's a bigger problem. Sometimes they've nearly maxed their budget and chose to buy something else.
Sometimes it's just not top priority for the customer or they get distracted. Sometimes, like taxes, it's on their to do list, but they procrastinate on it until it's a bigger problem. Sometimes they've nearly maxed their budget and chose to buy something else.
Best thing you can do is keep on moving on to gain new customers. If you have something they want they will buy, move those that disappear into a contact later group and reach out at a later time. Remember every pre-sales customer has a cost/time value. If they are not bringing you in money move on to those that do so you can further improve the SaaS company and maybe they will come back when you have what they are looking for.
What I do is send them an email every couple of months. Some people get busy, some people aren't interested anymore, some are embarrassed because they let on they have more power to buy than they do.
Some will tell you to stop emailing, some will never respond and some will eventually respond.
Some will tell you to stop emailing, some will never respond and some will eventually respond.
Also check your contact is actually still working there/try to have multiple people in the loop to avoid that.