Sales follow-up
A quotation goes out on Tuesday and nobody mentions it again. A buyer views a house and hears nothing. Follow-up is the part of selling that depends on memory, and memory fails in a busy week. This role keeps a date against every quote, viewing and conversation, and brings each back on the day with the next step drafted.
The role in brief
Keeps a follow-up date against every open quote, viewing and conversation, raises each one when it falls due and drafts the next step for approval.
Your CRM or sales system, the diary and the sales mailbox: wherever quotes, viewings and conversations are recorded.
The sales manager, or whoever owns each customer. They approve each message before it goes, and every reply, objection and question about price goes to them.
Follow-ups made on the day due, open items with no next step, and days since last contact.
Follow-up lives in the busiest person's head
Whoever made the first move follows up: the negotiator who did the viewing, the sales office clerk who sent the quotation, the consultant whose proposal went out after the discovery call. The reminder lives in a CRM task, a diary note or their head. It gets done on a quiet day and dropped on a busy one, and the list gets longer than the day.
The quote nobody mentioned again
A quotation takes time to price and goes out with a line asking the customer to get in touch. With no date against it, the follow-up happens when someone remembers. The customer who was nearly ready buys from the supplier who did get in touch.
A seller left without news
An estate agent's seller expects to hear after every viewing. The Property Ombudsman's code requires its member agents to pass viewing feedback on within the timescale agreed with the seller. When that slips the seller hears nothing, and wonders what the fee is paying for.
A forecast built on dead deals
When follow-ups live in people's heads, the CRM shows deals that went cold weeks ago beside ones about to close. The forecast becomes a guess, and a manager learns a deal has died only by asking about it.
From an open quote to a logged follow-up
Keeping the dates and drafting the next step are the agent's work. What goes to a customer is approved by a person, who also makes every call. Your follow-up rules are agreed with you first.
A date on everything
Reads each new quote, viewing and logged conversation and sets a follow-up date by the rules you choose: so many days after a quote, the day after a viewing.
Nothing.
Morning sweep
Each working morning, lists what falls due and what has sat untouched past your limit, with the history of each: what was sent, what was said and who owns it.
Nothing.
Next step
Drafts the next step from the record: the email asking for viewing feedback, the note on a quotation, or a prompt to the owner that this one needs a call.
Every message to a customer, unless you have given a standing instruction for routine ones. Phone calls are the owner's.
Log and hand over
Records what was sent and the next date against the customer, and passes each reply to the owner with the thread, so the conversation carries on with a person.
Offers, price questions, objections and complaints: a person answers all of them.
Follow-ups made on the day due
The share of follow-ups that went out, or were handed to their owner, on the date set. Counted from the record. Reviewed with you each month.
Open items with no next step
How many open quotes, viewings and deals have no follow-up date against them at the end of each week, and who owns each one.
Days since last contact
For every open item, the days since anyone was last in touch, oldest first, so the ones going cold are seen while they can still be saved.
Estate agents
Feedback requests drafted after every viewing, the vendor report drafted from the record, and market appraisals that never became instructions brought back to the valuer.
Wholesale and distribution
Quotations followed up on the day promised, and trade accounts that have stopped ordering flagged to the sales office before the customer is lost.
IT consultancies and software houses
Proposals and statements of work followed up after the discovery call, with the next date kept against each one.
Questions owners ask
Will it email our customers without us seeing the message?
Not unless you decide it should. It starts with every message drafted for the customer's owner to approve. Once you trust the routine ones, such as a request for viewing feedback, you can give a standing instruction for those to go without approval. Everything else still waits for a person.
What happens when a customer replies?
The reply goes to the person who owns that customer, with the thread and history attached. The agent does not negotiate, quote a price or answer an objection. Its job ends where the conversation starts, and it sets no new date until the owner says what happens next.
Does it make follow-up phone calls?
No. It works in writing. Where a call is the right next step, as it often is after a market appraisal or a large quotation, it puts the call on the owner's list for the day with the notes they need. The call is theirs to make.
How does it know when a follow-up is due?
From rules set with you when the role is specified, such as how many days after a quotation, how soon after a viewing and how long a deal may sit untouched. It reads the dates from your CRM or sales system, so it follows up what is recorded there and nothing else.