Mastering Sales Follow-up

Bill Kretz, Director of Sales of Hometrends; Matt Pridemore, Sales Trainer for HFA Sales Academy and owner of Badcock Home Furniture &More Stores; and Marc Evans, COO of Evans Furniture talk about proven strategies.

Successful follow up is crucial for building strong customer relationships and generating new opportunities in competitive home furnishings sales. However, training sales teams to excel in follow up requires a combination of proven strategies and industry expertise.

The Importance of Follow up

One of the first steps in training your sales team for successful follow up is helping them understand its significance as both a lead-generation tool and a sales strategy. We talked to retailers Bill Kretz, director of sales for Hometrends; Matt Pridemore, sales trainer for HFA Sales Academy and owner of Badcock Home Furniture &More Stores; and Marc Evans, COO of Evans Furniture. These retailers described training techniques that emphasized the value of follow up and demonstrated how it can nurture relationships, build trust, and ultimately close deals. Instilling this understanding in your team and celebrating their successes will motivate them to prioritize and execute it successfully.

When Does Follow Up Begin?

The first step in beginning a successful sales follow-up process is establishing clear communication with customers. All the retailers agreed that a part of any sales process is to ask questions and then listen. If salespeople do this effectively, they create rapport and build customer confidence. It then becomes easy to get customer information needed to establish themselves as advocates and allows them to follow up. Giving customers the “why” for wanting customer contact information is also essential. Salespeople should let customers know, “Here is what I will do for you and how we will provide you with personalization on your purchase.”

Marc Evans said, “Follow up is incorporated into our sales process. It begins either because the customer decided not to purchase or because they did purchase and we want to invest time and energy to try to do future business with them.”

Bill agreed. “Once you get the customer’s permission,” he said, “and they tell you it’s OK to contact them, you have to do it because the customer is now expecting it. At that point, you must insist that your sales team follows up. Failing to do that will break the customer’s confidence!”

“At Hometrends, we follow a three-part cadence for our immediate follow-up process. Knowing how busy our salespeople are, and that follow-up may be delayed, we’ve automated parts of our follow-up process.” -Bill Kretz, Hometrends

Timeline and Cadence

Timing is crucial when it comes to follow up. The ideal follow-up timeline and cadence to maximize the chances of success needs to be pertinent and persistent but not pushy.

Establishing a structured follow-up process enables your sales team to engage with leads and prospects at the right time, increasing the likelihood of conversions. Make it personal to them and not a canned response.

Automation: Bill explained, “Timing comes down to having an excellent computer system to record specific customer information and interactions that anybody in your organization can read. At Hometrends, we follow a three-part cadence for our immediate follow-up process. Knowing how busy our salespeople are, and that follow up may be delayed, we’ve automated parts of our follow-up process. When an opportunity or a quote goes into our database, the customer gets a text after they leave the store ‘thanking them for coming in.’ This is the first point of contact. The second point of contact is made within the next three days. Sales associates send the customer content pertinent to what they looked at. For a bedroom set, that might be sleep tips or a link to bettersleep.org. The information has to be of value to the shopper and pertinent to what they want to buy. That alone shows them we are paying attention and engaged with their needs. The third point of contact,” he concluded, “is made within seven days by sending a special offer and an invitation to participate in any event that is going on at the time.” Bill emphasized, “These three automation tools shorten the time it takes for a shopper to buy. I can’t emphasize enough how critical timing is; it will provide any furniture retailer with a big sales advantage.”

Separation: Matt added that timing is critical. “It’s important to teach your salespeople to be separators. That means separating themselves from other store salespeople. If somebody looks at a bedroom suite and then leaves your store without buying, you can bet they aren’t just going home. Their buying journey will continue. As soon as they leave, it’s a best practice for salespeople to take a picture of that bedroom set and text it along with their contact information, letting them know they are looking forward to fulfilling their purchase. This is a proven step to help them remember the exact piece they saw, where they saw it and get them back into the store to buy. At this point, salespeople can answer any questions they could not answer on the spot. The bottom line is to remind them what they were looking at and why they liked it.”

Enabling: Matt continued, “Also include enablers that will allow them to buy. To help the customer fit this product into their budget, if the salesperson was unable to discuss finance, this is a wonderful moment to let them know about your store’s financing alternatives.”

“If a customer finds something they liked but did not buy,” Bill added, “either they can’t afford it or we haven’t added enough value. At this point, we introduce payment or financing options. We train our team to personalize their follow up and encourage them to listen well so they can understand their customers’ needs. Having done that, they can follow up with personalized responses.”

Recording: Marc shared, “Every salesperson at Evan’s Furniture utilizes a Follow-Up Agreement Sheet for each ‘Up.’ This sheet collects the customer’s name, phone number, email address and the customer’s preferred contact method. There’s also an area to draw the room or have the customer do it, the reason for their visit/what they were looking for, an area for preferences such as style or color, usage considerations including pets/kids and a spot to add additional notes. At the end of every day, salespeople add the collected information into our system as a sale or an opportunity to automatically create a follow-up task. Using this system has increased our percentage of backs, and because the start of each customer contact is recorded on paper and in our computer system, it has eliminated problems with salespeople fighting over customers.”

“Using this system has increased our percentage of backs and because the start of each customer contact is recorded on paper and in our computer system, it has eliminated problems with salespeople fighting over customers.”

Powerful 555 Program

The 555 program is a sales strategy used at Badcock Home Furniture &More to maintain consistent contact with past and potential customers. “Every day, our salespeople are required to complete their 555 lists,” Matt explained. “The first item on the list is to call five past customers that purchased at least six months ago. They ask them a series of questions about how the product works for them and if they will be furnishing any other rooms in the immediate future. They then contact five customers that have purchased in the last week to ensure all the information in our system is correct and ensure smooth delivery. These calls present an opportunity to upsell. Maybe the customer didn’t buy one piece of a collection or fabric protection. The last five phone calls are made to encourage customers who did not purchase to come back into the store. Salespeople may offer an incentive such as a current special or a 10 percent discount.

“Any retailer can incorporate a 555 program into its follow-up strategy to nurture leads, stay top-of-mind, get customers back into the store, and ultimately close more deals.”

“Any retailer can incorporate a 555 program into its follow-up strategy to nurture leads, stay top-of-mind, get customers back into the store, and ultimately close more deals.” - Matt Pridemore, Badcock Home Furniture &More

Customer Success Programs

Customer success programs effectively bring customers back into the store and foster long-term loyalty. They highlight the importance of proactively reaching out to existing customers, anticipate their needs, and deliver exceptional experiences. A well-executed customer success program turns salespeople into brand advocates and serves to maximize customer lifetime value.

Bill Kretz explained how Hometrends designed and implemented a customer success program focusing on ongoing customer engagement, support, and satisfaction.

“It’s a non-negotiable selling standard in our stores. Salespeople must collect contact information and follow up at least three times with every guest entered into our system as an opportunity or quote. We track performance as an important and useful metric. Any retailer that wants to encourage their sales team to follow up, should have a plan in place to celebrate when salespeople have success in bringing back a customer to buy! We track each salesperson’s productivity score (close rate + how many contacts they get) and require them to perform at a certain level. Scores are reviewed daily and brought into our morning huddle. It’s become an important part of our culture and a powerful motivator for salespeople.”

“It’s a non-negotiable selling standard in our stores. Salespeople must collect contact information and follow up at least three times with every guest entered into our system as an opportunity or quote.” -Bill Kretz, Hometrends

Conclusion

Mastering sales follow-up is vital for sales teams looking to fill their pipeline and drive revenue growth. By training your team with proven strategies, understanding the importance of follow up, defining a timeline and cadence, selecting the proper communication channels, diversifying follow-up methods, and creating a customer success program, home furnishings stores can significantly improve their sales results and increase customer loyalty. The Home Furnishings Association serves the industry with the latest education and information that impacts your business. Learn more about membership and resources at www.myhfa.org or by calling 800.422.3778.

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The Home Furnishings Association is proud to serve the industry with the latest education and information that impacts your business. Learn more about membership and resources at www.myhfa.org or by calling 800.422.3778.