Who's Following Up Your 'Contact Us' Enquiries?
The answer is often no one!
β How many times have you gone to a website and clicked on either their Contact Us form or email, completed your details and information about your enquiry and all you got back was crickets?
This happened to me when I both emailed and completed the website Contact Us form of a major hotel group, to see if I had left something in the room (which I hadn't which was great but not the point of the story).
So what's the point?
It's the amount of small businesses who only have an online presence (social media, website forms and email) as their main form of communication rather than telephone; and yet, they don't have the follow up systems in place to actually respond.
Or if they do, then something's broken and they should be finding out why.
FOCUS: #3 PROFITABILITY BRICK
Design Your π² MONEY π TRAIN
If this is sounding eerily familiar and you think your small business may have fallen into this trap, here's 5 things to review to ensure you maintain high standards of customer service and don't lose potential customers because of your systems (or lack thereof).
π5 Things To Review About Your 'Contact Us' Process
β
#1 Who's inbox is it sent to?
β
#2 Is it directed to a specific person or position?
β
#3 If it's forwarded to a specific person, are they the right person?
Does this task fall into the many functions within their position description or were they just the only person available when this was first set up and it's never been reviewed since?
β
#4 What happens if this person is away on holidays, at training or sick?
Who gets the email/enquiry form then?
β
#5 What is the expected response timeframes to firstly acknowledge the enquiry, and then respond to the enquiry?
πIf you don't know the answers to these questions, I suggest you head to your website and complete enquiries using every option which is presented to you (email and forms), on every page of your website.
Then see where they go, whether the links are working, what email response you get, if any (and if this the response you want your customers receiving) etc.
You may think this is a waste of time or unnecessary because they're such little things I've pointed out.
But here's the thing.
Systems are the essential foundations for any profitable small business.
Until you've pretended to be a customer on your own website (ala mystery shopped it), you can't be certain as to eg:
β why your enquiries have gone down
β why your complaints have gone up
β why people are coming to your website, spending time there (by completing a form or email) and yet, have never purchased your product or service.
π‘ Imagine 1 person is completing your enquiry box, form or email every day, but never receives a response at all or a response in a timely manner?
That's potentially 365 new customers or 365 lost customers; depending on how you look at things.
β So how many possible sales have you lost because you haven't spent even an hour, checking your systems are working as they should be?
And here's my final thought:
β How quickly after reading this blog will you allocate time for your 'Enquiry Audit'?
I hope it's today or tomorrow rather than a week's time because the math gets worse the longer you leave it.
Cheers
Tamara (aka the 'Bob the Builder for Small Business' π· - can she fix it, yes she can!)
π€Speaker π Author β°π² Coach
P.S Wondering how you can work with me or speak at your small business event?
Then let's chat.
And if you're saying you don't have time, we really need to chat because I can easily create at least 1 simple strategy to save 30 minutes a day so you've got nothing to lose.
