Visiting customers v email

[anonymous-user]

Hey all,

So I have a little side business but am wanting a little advice. I have several customers all over the place but in four years I still havent visited most of them in person. Some for obvious reasons (They are 5000 miles plus away from me) but all of them I tend to just have an email relationship but it works well enough that it brings in good money all year round. I'd like to expand my business with them but I am a bit of a quiet one so to speak so f2f is a difficult thing for me.

Talking to you pro's... Is a face to face evey six months or so worth it? Just interested to know peoples thoughts.

Regards

CL

[egroeg]

I think it depends on the industry and the scale of the projects they are involved with.

For engineering, it is pretty irritating how any request for information is met with a meeting invite, which is inevitably with a sales guy with very little technical knowledge - more cost and less use than a pdf with the specs would have been.

I've had a lot of people where if they'd given the details they would have saved a trip, and also those where their long distance trip, whilst useful, doesn't get any extra revenue and they will never recoup the costs as there aren't any more sales. Our experience is it takes longer and is less efficient - we try our best to put them off or avoid them if possible now due to a lot of these experiences.

Is there anything new or would you just be selling them what you're already selling them?

[Phunk]

I’d look into sending personalised videos out in emails. We’re doing it and the response has been fantastic, customers like the extra effort you’ve gone to (in reality, nothing much!) and being able to put a face to a name.

Some good examples here:

https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/personalized-vi...

[Marcellus]

People like to buy from people so possibly a f2f may be beneficial, especially if the customer has more business they could put your way.

Even if they don’t by really personalising it if there were an issue then it’s easier to overcome.

Why not try it with one and see how it goes, nothing fancy just a bite to eat and chat.

[Julian Thompson]

I find that a what’s app chat works very well especially with my international customers. This approach has brought me infinitely closer to all of them.

I also find that the face to face visits are invaluable, but more on the basis of trust and relationship building rather than actual operational stuff (we also have a bit of a language barrier as unfortunately I only speak English and most of my customers have English as very much a second language, so we find communication easier using writing easier anyway, especially for technical things.)

As such I have previously only done these “royal visits” to them about once a year but I’m going to increase that to twice a year I think.

I’d say the most important thing about a visit is have a well planned agenda that you’ve already broached on the WhatsApp or whatever it is, first, so that you don’t end up just letting the precious time pass in a blur of pleasantaries. Having that agenda should also ease your nerves a little if you’re concerned about making sure things go smoothly.

[ColinM50]

Rather than personally visiting them, is there an opportunity to meet say at an exhibition? Or maybe take a stand or pop up stand at one and invite them to visit you. Could kill two birds with one stone i.e. meet existing customers and generate new ones/

[Jambo85]

ChocyLint1 said:

Hey all,

So I have a little side business but am wanting a little advice. I have several customers all over the place but in four years I still havent visited most of them in person. Some for obvious reasons (They are 5000 miles plus away from me) but all of them I tend to just have an email relationship but it works well enough that it brings in good money all year round. I'd like to expand my business with them but I am a bit of a quiet one so to speak so f2f is a difficult thing for me.

Talking to you pro's... Is a face to face evey six months or so worth it? Just interested to know peoples thoughts.

Regards

CL

I'm naturally quite quiet also, but face time with customers is priceless. As someone has already said, just make sure you have something specific to discuss like some upcoming work, that way you don't need to worry about small talk and your customer won't feel you have wasted their time in any way.