For inexperienced foreign trade salesmen, it is challenging to participate in the Canton Fair and follow up with customers at the exhibition site. They may encounter some problems when following up with customers. Let’s take a look at the FAQs for following up at the Canton Fair exhibition site.
(1) Customers who had a good chat did not respond after follow-up?
Normal. Customers must have talked about many suppliers and may still be selecting, or they may meet a supplier that they feel is more suitable at the exhibition site after talking to you. If you have a good chat with the customer and the customer does not respond, it is recommended to call to ask, let the customer open up, and tell the customer about your current situation to prevent you from urging and influencing the customer.
During the 5-day exhibition, it is recommended that you contact the customer twice by email, even if it is AB customers. You should give customers some time and space, and don’t force them too tight.
Users in some regions are very slow to respond, such as Latin America and the Middle East. They are estimated to be very slow, don’t worry, they say they will place an order immediately, and the project is particularly urgent, but they may let you wait for three months. Of course, this is uncertain.
(2) What should I do if I can’t find a topic to chat with the customer?
There are many friends who seem to have no other topics to talk about except talking about work with clients. Following up with clients, always urging them to work will make them embarrassed.
In fact, it is not difficult to deal with this problem. There are only two points: one is to think in other people’s shoes. If you want to communicate with others, what topics do you want others to talk about with you? The other point is to understand the preferences of customers.
Generally speaking, in addition to talking about the weather, there are also what books you have read, what movies you have watched, what music you have listened to, what you have learned recently, what food you have tasted, or they are conceiving of writing a book (most foreigners say they are writing a book), etc. These are all topics that can be talked about.
If you have a good relationship with the client, you can talk about a little bit of private topics. The so-called semi-private topics are information known by acquaintances, such as non-public information such as the client’s family status, age, and client preferences. Although some information can be obtained through social media, a large amount of semi-private information refers to deeper details that may not be mentioned in social media. We must talk about work, but customers are also people, not work machines. The emotional value that we should provide must still be provided.
Note: Try to work in work emails. It is better to conduct other small talk through social media. Writing about topics unrelated to work for a long time may bring disaster to customers.
(3) Don’t know how to master the frequency of customer follow-up?
Generally speaking, new customers of type AB can be followed up once a week, and customers of type CD can be followed up once every two weeks or a month. If it progresses to a very important node, such as any problem is almost the same, it will be stuck on a certain issue. If the customer does not respond here, it is recommended to call directly.
Don’t push too hard, which will cause customers to be disgusted. It is more important to provide useful information every time you contact.
For inexperienced foreign trade salesmen, it is challenging to participate in the Canton Fair and follow up with customers at the exhibition site. When following up with customers, they may encounter some problems. This article provides answers to common questions such as customer non-response, finding suitable topics and mastering the frequency of follow-up, to help foreign trade salesmen better cope with the challenges of the exhibition site.