Developing A Professional Follow-Up System

Maintaining a consistent follow-up program is an important way to show professionalism, especially since the work of sweeping is done at night when the customer usually isn't present. When you get a contract, what you have actually done is to convince the client in advance that you will do a good job, unsupervised, night after night. Having a good follow-up system is an aspect of your business that will really help to provide this assurance.

A professional follow-up system has two components, which we will call long-term and short-term, and also varies according to whether you are following up on a prospect or on a client. Although it is helpful to divide them into separate components in order to aid understandability, all of the following are very much parts of the same wholistic pattern of showcasing your responsibility.

Short-Term Follow-Up With Prospects

The most obvious item in your short-term follow-up action plan should be to send thank-you notes after each presentation you make. These should be sent, with very few exceptions, with complete disregard for the response you received in the interview. Because many fail to do this, it is an ideal way to set yourself apart from the crowd.

It is good business to send thank-you notes even to non-prospects, because doing so is a good image builder. There is a high level of cross-communication by those in the property management field, and word will get around that you run a professional company.

You don't need to make your notes anything fancy, but you do want them easy to read, succinct and professional looking. What do you say? This is actually a very important question...

Long-Term Follow-Up With Prospects

If a prospect is currently using a competitor's service, make sure to tell them that you'll be checking back with them on a periodic basis. Then call at least every 6 months; 90 days is usually better. This establishes yours as a professional and ongoing concern, and will also give you the opportunity to be first in line to take over service if a change is to be made.

If you maintain a good filing system, you'll easily be able to keep track of when each callback is due. Telling someone that you will again call on them at a specific point in the future 'just to touch bases,' and then doing so each and every time, is a very powerful tool toward getting new clients. It shows better than anything that you do what you say you will do, and that is exactly what a property manager wants when they hire a company to do work for them at a time when they can't be there to supervise.

Now that computers have made ongoing communications so much easier, relatively, than ever before, we recommend that you add any potential prospect you have seen to your mailing list. List management companies will type in the basic data you provide them for around 15 cents per name, address and phone number. Always include the phone number in the database so that you can do follow-up calling, if you want to, after a mail-out of brochures, new contact letters, etc.

If you do this, it's a good idea to include...

Short-Term Follow-Up With New Clients

Again be sure to send out a thank you note, confirming your agreement and the fact that they made a good decision. 'Buyer's remorse' is a term which describes the psychological feeling that many people have just after they buy something. This can also strike those who have just signed a contract for something like sweeping services.

The cure for buyer's remorse is good follow-up. The first step in effecting the cure occurs when you send out your thank you note. In it, you should...

Long-Term Follow-Up With Clients

Because most managers of the property you sweep will not be there when you are doing your job, it is more important in this business than in most that you remain visible to them. This has at least two significant advantages: It will serve as a reminder that you are there on schedule, as you are supposed to be, and; you will learn earlier if there are any problems cropping up in how they perceive the job you are doing.

Following are some other ideas for letters which you can send to your clients on an ongoing basis:

• 'How Are You Doing?' letter.
• 'How Are We Doing?' letter.
• 'Service Schedule Re-evaluation' letter.
• 'Other Services We Offer' letter.
• 'Are There Other Services You Wish We Offered?' letter.
• More...

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  When Customers Quit

  Don't burn any bridges! Situations can change, sometimes very quickly. Send them a letter expressing your sorrow that they are leaving you, and encourage them to call you if their situation changes.

  Under most circumstances, you will also want to keep them on your periodic mailing list.

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World Sweeper
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