I’ve written about the importance of following up with your prospects and customers before, but I’m writing about it now with some different thoughts on this absolutely critical piece of the window cleaning business building puzzle.

I wish sometimes you could be a fly on the wall and listen in on my conversations I have with folks sometimes. One of the topics that comes up frequently is following up. How important is it, is it necessary, what if I elect not to do it, etc.

I’m going to copy some information below that someone sent to me a few months ago.

If you don’t think follow-up is important, read this piece of information from the National Sales Executive Association. Their statistics show that the most sales by far are made from the 5th through the 12th contact! Here is the data they have compiled:

2 % of sales are made on the 1st contact
3 % of sales are made on the 2nd contact
5 % of sales are made on the 3rd contact
10 % of sales are made on the 4th contact
80 % of sales are made on the 5th – 12th contact

If you’re not using a follow-up system, then you may be losing as much as 98% of your potential customer base! Can you really afford to lose even ONE prospective customer?

Amazing, huh? And check out those stats above.

I do want to stress though that it usually doesn’t take 5 to 12 phone calls in the window washing business in order to "close the sale".

The above stats would apply more to direct sales organizations like the insurance business which I was in for a few years. That’s where I learned the importance of follow-up because it generally took awhile from the initial contact to the final sale.

All I wanted to emphasize by showing you the above wording/stats is just that calling prospects and customers back regularly will add more jobs to your calendar and increase your income. It’s that simple.

The window washers who present estimates to their prospects one time without contacting them again, are not going to do as well as the window washer who continues to call the prospect until they say "Yes, clean my windows".

Same thing goes for the window washer who takes care of a customer, but then never calls ‘em back for the 2nd appointment, 3rd appointment, etc.

Isn’t that crazy? I mean we have a customer on the hook. So why would we let them off?

You have to understand that virtually 100% of our prospects and customers are successful people. In business, in life, whatever. They’ve accomplished a lot through their own efforts, so therefore they are people who appreciate a solid effort from other people.

One of the things I hear a lot from folks is that they feel like telemarketers when making follow up phone calls.

But this seriously is not what is going through a prospect or customer’s mind. Even if they might not set an appointment with you at that moment, they’ll appreciate your effort. And it’ll bring you closer to an appointment on your next call with them.

Furthermore, the number of times I had prospects and customers thanking me for calling them was just incredible.

The importance of follow-up is the ONLY reason I started dreaming up an automatic follow-up system back in ’03. After a huge chunk of dollars in terms of investment, you can see the results at The Customer Factor. 

No…this isn’t a sales pitch to join The Customer Factor. 

It is simply to let you know that if I thought follow-up was something we should do in our spare time or when we "get around to it", I certainly wouldn’t have invested this kind of money and time into creating the software. No Way.

Oh, and speaking about follow-up combined with The Customer Factor, I had one member recently let me into her account. The passwords are scrambled so I can never get into an account unless someone wants to let me in.

But she wanted to show me her monthly schedule. It was filled with dozens of customers.  The reason I’m mentioning this is because she told me that many of the appointments listed on her schedule happened due to her simply following-up with the prospects and customers in her account. 

So that’s why I just cringe when I hear someone say "Well…I presented my estimate. They never called me back though, so they must not have been interested"

Whew…money is being left on the table if that prospect isn’t called back regularly. A lot of folks just get tied up and are busy doing "stuff", so they forget about you.

Yes, sometimes it is the case that a prospect might not have any interest. It happens. But more often then not, a series of follow up phone calls beginning with phone call #1 three days after you present the estimate, will do the trick and get them on your schedule.

And keep in mind that the easiest customer you can ever get, is one whose windows you already cleaned. Assuming you did a good job of course. ) But it’s sooooo easy to secure additional appointments with ‘em. It’s like having your own money tree in your backyard.

I used to get home at the end of the day from cleaning windows and/or supervising crews, and one of the things I looked forward to the most, was looking through my index box to see who I could call. The Customer Factor wasn’t around then so I had to do it all manually.

Although that may have been a pain in terms of "doing it manually", I loved making the actual phone calls.

I mean who wouldn’t. You call 10 customers who are coming up for a repeat service and ask them if you can clean their windows again. You then call a few prospects who are still "on the fence" about using your service. An hour later when you’re off the phone, you look at your schedule and realize you now have no gaps this week or next!

So please don’t forget to follow up with BOTH prospects and customers. You work hard to get the message out about your service, so don’t let someone off the hook. If you do, it’s like taking money out of your pocket and throwing it out the car window.

If you need an easy way to handle this, then take a look at The Customer Factor if you haven’t already. It’s used currently by more than 450 window cleaners who are interested in growing their window cleaning businesses "almost" automatically. I say "almost" because they still have to make the calls.

It’s like Deland Moghimi wrote in an email to me recently: "With The Customer Factor at my side, my window cleaning business is only going to get better and better."

See you next time and Happy Cleaning.

Best Wishes,

Steve