In foreign trade business, customer follow-up is a crucial link. However, many foreign trade practitioners often fall into some misunderstandings when following up with customers, resulting in poor follow-up results and even missed orders. This article will popularize the common misunderstandings in foreign trade customer follow-up and propose correct follow-up strategies to help foreign trade practitioners improve customer follow-up results and achieve order transactions.
1. Excessive questioning of background issues
Many foreign trade practitioners often excessively ask customers about their background issues when following up with customers, such as purchase quantity, previous suppliers, target price, etc. Although these issues are important to practitioners themselves, they are often not of much value to customers and may even make customers feel disgusted. The correct approach is to pay more attention to customers’ needs and pain points on the basis of understanding their basic information, so as to provide targeted solutions.
2. Lack of trust-building actions
Trust is a crucial factor in customer follow-up. However, many practitioners ignore the work of trust-building when following up with customers, resulting in customers being unwilling to disclose more information or participate in in-depth communication. In order to build trust, practitioners can demonstrate their strength and integrity by sending company introductions, success stories, product samples, etc. At the same time, actively responding to customers’ questions and needs and showing a professional and responsible attitude can also help win customers’ trust.
3. Lack of customer business confirmation
Understanding the customer’s business is the basis for formulating sales strategies. However, some practitioners either do not conduct customer background checks or look at the website but do not know how to judge the customer’s business scale and attributes. This will cause the sales strategy to be out of touch with actual needs and affect the transaction effect. Therefore, when following up with customers, practitioners should fully understand the customer’s business type, scale, customer group and other information in order to formulate a more accurate sales strategy.
4. Lack of relationship building ability
Building relationships is equally important in customer follow-up. However, some practitioners are eager to send catalogs and quotations, ignoring the importance of building relationships with customers. This practice often makes customers feel that they are being sold and lose interest. The correct approach is to pay more attention to communication and interaction with customers in the ice-breaking stage, understand customers’ needs and concerns, and gradually promote sales after establishing a good relationship.
V. Correct strategy: stimulate interest, build trust, and confirm needs
In response to the above misunderstandings, we propose the following correct follow-up strategies: First, stimulate customer interest by sending interesting product information or industry dynamics; second, build trust by demonstrating the company’s strength and success stories; finally, based on in-depth communication with customers, confirm customer needs and pain points and provide targeted solutions. These three steps are essential parts of customer follow-up and can help practitioners better advance the sales process.
Common misunderstandings in foreign trade customer follow-up include excessive questioning of background questions, lack of trust-building actions, lack of customer business confirmation, and lack of relationship-building capabilities. In order to overcome these misunderstandings, practitioners should adopt correct follow-up strategies, including steps such as stimulating interest, building trust, and confirming needs. By using these strategies, practitioners can more effectively advance customer follow-up work and increase order conversion rates.