How often do you follow up after initial inquiry?

[Steve Sas]

Let's say you get an inquiry and email and or talk to the person on Monday, but they don't reply or sign up.

Do you call/email them back on Tuesday to find out if they have more questions or to try to book them?

If you didn't reach them Tuesday, do you keep trying all week?

In other words, how much do you chase them after your initial contact? Or do you just assume they booked elsewhere?

IF you do lots of follow ups, do you find you booked a lot of dates that you wouldn't have without the good follow up?

Thanks!

[brenda]

This subject crops up regularly Steve - and always provokes a lot of conflicting comments.

The majority seem to regularly send follow-up emails and think they get a good return on this.

Fewer others - me included - think it is inappropriate and the enquirer will get back to us if they genuinely are interested; we always say to please contact us again if they have any questions in our original reply.

You have to decide for yourself which approach you prefer.

[petitbois]

emails sometimes go walkabout or get filtered as SPAM - not every one is a computer whizz, so a follow up is a good idea especially if you receive no return receipt on your email. This is our format & just helps give people a nudge or at least let you know they haven't received your reply for one reason or the other. We have succeeded with a booking following this more often than not.....

Dear Ms ****

As a follow-up to your enquiry and my reply (sent a couple of days ago) we are sorry to have not heard back from you.

We trust that you received our reply and are hopefully still considering booking at La B**** however, just in case you did not receive it for any reason we offer our apologies and hope you are still interested as we would be delighted to hear from you.

Kind regards

[Maurmc]

Hi Steve. There's quite a long discussion on the topic here

viewtopic.php?t=14346&highlight=follow

Welcome to LMH!

[Nemo]

Christine Karpinski who is an American rental owner, author and speaker worldwide, rings all her guests after the initial enquiry! Not for everyone and I don't even get a phone number half the time, but she had some interesting views as to why she did this.

I regularly, but not always follow up, depending on the type of enquiry etc. I may not get a reply, but I have had a positive response with guests coming at other times instead. They may have booked elsewhere that time but because I have come across as a caring, professional owner, they like the thought of booking through me in the future.

That's my take on it anyway!

[wallypott]

I follow up 2 days later, saying hope you got our initial email, if you have any questions get in touch. If you have chosen somewhere else have a fab holiday.

[Giddy Goat]

Christine Karpinski who is an American rental owner, author and speaker worldwide, rings all her guests after the initial enquiry!

If her market is primarily North Am, there is probably a difference in cultural attitude towards this. I think UK travellers would tend to see this as "pushy" by and large unless you can create a pretext for calling as well - to pass on some additional info they may have missed eg which might help them in their decision ...

[la vache!]

I think UK travellers would tend to see this as "pushy" by and large

And desperate.

[greenbarn]

I think UK travellers would tend to see this as "pushy" by and large

And desperate.

And intrusive.

Even worse if the call started with "I just want personally to reach out to you........... " (Insert green vomiting smiley if you have one.)

[Giddy Goat]

Oh yes - treble cringe!!

[Margaret]

I just wait 2 days and send a follow up email saying ' Dear x I hope you received my answer to your enquiry. Is there any other information I can help you with? yours etc.'

They can read that in the time it takes to reach for the delete key.

I know a lot of people send out masses of enquiries because they know so many won't answer. This helps to make you stand out in the small crowd of people who reply. And yes, we have had people come back to us a year later and say 'I enquired last year and it didn't work out but now I want to book.' I reckon it's all part of creating a dialogue.

[Steve Sas]

Great responses - Thank you all!

Yes, I think a lot of it may depend on the culture of your area.
Nothing would be worse than spending extra time to follow up only to annoy your guests!

I think in the US people might be more tolerant of it, if done in a very polite way of course. If it does result in more bookings, then it might be worth it. The other side benefit might be finding out why they went elsewhere. Was it price? location? It is nice to know one way or the other if they are staying. Most just leave you hanging with no response.

[Maurmc]

I reckon it's all part of creating a dialogue.

I agree. I send follow-up emails if I think the enquirer is genuinely interested in our property at the time. HL stats shows you what properties they were looking at before enquiring, which is useful. I've sent a few follow ups this week and received 2 replies from enquirers who say they won't be travelling to Spain this year. I hope that the dialogue might help them to remember us at some other time.

[Montana]

I send a follow-up email, a couple of days after the initial enquiry.

Often nothing more happens, but it's also the case that, with groups, it takes a bit of time for the organiser to get around everyone - this in turn produces questions and I find it useful to tell the enquirer they are welcome to come back to me with these. I've turned several of these into bookings that may have gone elsewhere

[lorca]

I suspect there´s a difference between a follow up email and a phone call.

Almost all of our bookings are done by email and we´ll send a polite follow up if the initial enquiry seemed keen and/or personally tailored rather than an obvious "round robin".

But I´m not sure I´d be as happy to chase someone with a phone call - could be awkward if they´d just decided they´d prefer somewhere else.