GPI 301 – Right now, how many sales voicemails or emails are there still not reviewed or answered in your company?

Over the past few hours in your company, how many customers or interested potential buyers either sent emails asking for quotes or left voicemails for your sales personnel and still now do not have an answer?  The answer is irrelevant if those inquiries were forwarded for quick and timely resolution. If not, this may be a problem for your company if you do not emphasize customer service and quick responses. Find out what your policy is for helping your customers, and your company’s sales effort.  Test your system.

Suggestions to ensure quick customer follow-up:

• Issue sales department directive: Establish a directive in all sales or customer service job descriptions that all emails must be opened within a specific time (i.e. every 30 minutes, every hour, three times per shift, etc.). It is important that your personnel hear it from the manager himself. They need to see it as a guideline in their job description.  Remind them of this and ask often so they get used to it. Award good performance and replace those who will not participate.  They are hurting your sales effort.
• Automate monitoring: Tell the IT manager you want the sales manager or sales secretary to be able to see how many emails are unopened on all of the sales desk computers after a specific time. Tell him you want to see how old they are so they do not become too old.
• Report of unopened emails by employee’s office computer:  You want this report generated by your IT department every two to four hours and resolved by someone in inside sales.
• Reroute unanswered inquiries: Ask if incoming sales emails sent to the representatives can be rerouted, forwarded or copied elsewhere after so many minutes, in order to be answered or at least read by a customer service person.  If that cannot be done automatically, assign someone to clear the telephones and email accounts of messages. Remember, someone wants to buy from you and cannot get a response.

Someone in your customer service department or on your sales staff needs to call those customers so they do not grow tired of your poor customer service and finally call a competitor that is happy to take your business.