The best way to follow up on quotes it either to call them directly. If you don’t have the resources then send out a simple, to the point e-mail blast. Smaller businesses sometimes have a difficult time following up on quotes so I recommend a very simple, personal, direct email Leverage your estimating and quoting software to pull all “open quotes” for a date range. Leverage the fields you have in your estimating system to use variable data and personalize the mass follow-up eblast.

Dear (first name),

This is a follow-up to the quote we sent to you on (quote date). Thank you for giving us the opportunity. We are very excited to work with you, but have not heard anything. Could you please give an update or status? Thank you.

Sincerely,
Your name
Title
Phone
Website.

Nothing fancy. It should be short, to the point, and ask the one question. You already quoted and maybe spent time with them understanding requirements for the work. Now is the time for them to decide or engage. Nothing is more effective than calling, but in these economic times you may not have that luxury and may need to batch process in a disciplined, automated way using technology.

1. Do you agree with Barack Obama and the Democrats that taxes should be raised for the sake of “fairness” regardless of the negative impact it is likely to have on the economy?

2. Do you believe that the best way to increase the quality and effectiveness of public education in the U.S. is to rapidly expand federal funding while eliminating performance standards and accountability?

3. Do you support the creation of a national health insurance plan that would be administered by bureacrats in Washington, D.C.?

4)  Do you believe that the quality and availability of health care will increase if the federal government dictates pricing to doctors and hospitals?

5) Are you confident that new medicines and medical treatments will continue to be developed if the federal government controls prescription drug prices and sets profit margins for research and pharmaceutical companies?

6)  Are you in favor of reinstituting the military draft, as Democrats in Congress have proposed?

Wow!  I wouldn’t expect more than 1% to pick “Yes” to any of these questions if they read the entire question.  I wonder who is managing this “objective” study?  I wonder what the statitical signficance will be when they publish it?  In research it is easy to get the answers you want “to hear” if you just ask the questions in the proper way.   OK, I am a little sarcastic here, but beware of published results without seeing the actual question and who the questions were asked to.  I am considered a conservative so my guess is that they felt they would get the data they wanted.  Sorry, but this datapoint will not be included in this study.   The survey is now carefully being placed in the round file.

If your membership is large I suggest not surveying everyone, but break membership into subsets and manage last survey dates. Then you can get information and support your members, but not badger your membership and cause dissatisfaction.

Some organizations can get away with surveying their members more often, but I don’t know how your response rates have been in the past to comment here.

There is a definite threshold and you don’t want to go over the line.

The key is to understand their appetite for research, look at the size of your membership to determine if you can segment out and only survey a portion of membership and still get the statistical significance necessary for a quality study, and look at the incentives you give to members who participate.

Having a study on a website many times doesn’t work as well and typically an email with the link is the way to go if you want higher response rates, reminder management, tracing. E-newsletters with a link may work, but it may compromise the data or cause box stuffing.

If you can share the results of the research it would help as well. We have found that if a member filling out a research study sees value in the results and will get a copy of the report free, they are more apt to participate in more studies. In one association they go to members just about every 90 days with a study, get high response rates, but always share the report with anyone participating. Others pay for the published study.

They pick the right studies and put out a quality report so members look forward to them. Members see value in participating and the research has become a membership benefit! In this case the research studies got the #1 rating on satisfaction of all the services offered to membership. That is what may want to strive for.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Recently an association executive was trying to learn how to approach a membership award program for their conference.  Below are a few things to consider.  Granted this is a professional organization so take what you would like from it.   Here is the response.

Hopefully the ideas below helps as you decide how to approach.

1) You may want to start off with maybe a few awards that focus on the key, most important awards. I have seen members dread going to their big dinner / award dinner because they state “I see more firewood being handed out and I never go to them”. Firewood meaning plagues. Be careful and pick your battle. Members will appreciate it and you can test the waters and expand from there.

2) Depending on your membership a plague is a nice gesture and something visible. Certificates may work if in a nice frame and something they would hang in their office or out in front. I noticed you are a teacher association so maybe the certificates would be nice right next to their degree. Also, academia may be more open to recognition versus trade associations so you may be onto something.

3) I don’t think the money is the thing. A nice plague or certificate should be fine. It is the recognition more than the money in most cases with professional organizations.

4) Definitely would give them a little token or money to come out and stay.Again, nothing crazy, but maybe the flight and motel room.

You know your membership and what gets them jazzed more than anyone so I suggest going with your first instinct or go out to members and ask, but start small if you can and then grow from there if possible. First year maybe 5 awards, and then increase as feedback comes back and you see the response from members and winners.

Also, promoting the awards is important and giving PR to those winning members. Maybe a short case study posted on your website explaining what they did to win and why they are a star peer.

A more subtle way to capture referrals is to tie the request for referrals into a customer feedback survey.  The way it works is that you send a customer a very short five question survey after your complete a job, complete a service, or ship a product.  One of the questions asks the ultimate question “How likely are you to recommend us to a colleague, friend, or family member?”  For all customers who click “Very Likely”,  you now know they are loyal, love you, are passionate about what you do for them, and are the customers most likely to recommend you.  They have self qualified themselves!  At that point when they click submit on the survey you direct them to a landing page to highlight your referral program along with any gift you want to offer.  It is that simple.  I have seen up to 5% of those filling out the survey offering referrals to help their supplier or vendor.  What an opportunity!   Just don’t forget to call them or thank them for the referral.  It is only common courtesy and it will feed the referral process.  

Just last week a small printer closed a $1,000 initial order with a referral by using this process and the newly acquired customer appears to be ready to give them future orders for other printing needs.  This process isn’t just for printers, but can work with insurance agencies, any service organization or business that relies on referrals to grow and prosper. 

So, don’t leave your loyal customers just buying from you.  Engage them in the selling process and expand your selling force.

1)Keep surveys as short as possible and know your audience. 

2)Know both their appetite for the kind of survey you are doing and also how strong your relationship is with them.

3)Look at your e-mail invitation to the survey.  Messaging is so important to grab attention.

4)Look at the words used. You may be getting caught in spam and it isn’t being delivered.

5)Look at the subject line to make sure it is enticing and connects with the responder.

Most of the time you should only need to remind once and then you become an annoyance.  If you need to go with multiple reminders then something is going on.