Reducing & Rescheduling No-Shows

One of the biggest letdowns is sales aside from losing a deal is when someone no-shows for a meeting or a demo. Aside from the lost opportunity for an opportunity, it also means the AE will have immediate dead time, may feel unmotivated, or they will just “chill” until the next thing on their calendar. 

It will always happen, but here are some sure-fire steps to help reduce the no-shows and then what to do when there is a no-show.

Appointment Setting Process

1. 1. The 3 Pronged 5 Touch Appointment Setting Process
      1. SDR/BDR sends calendar invite
      2. SDR/BDR immediately sends email with “proposed agenda for demo with ____”
         1. Include all prospect parties
         2. Includes Agenda
            1. Introduction
            2. Understanding what prospect wants to get out of the demo aside from 3 high level points prospect wanted to discuss.
            3. Answer prospect’s questions
            4. Determine next steps
         3. Include all AE’s, SEs
         4. Provides “intro to AE” 
      3. AE – Replies immediately to the email, “Thanks for the handoff, looking forward to chatting, if you have any questions ahead of time let me know.” 
      4. SDR –  Connect on LinkedIn
      5. AE – Connect on LinkedIn

That is 5 touches within 24 hours around the appointment. No, it is not too much. We have been teaching it for years, teams love it, and it’s always a top 5 favorite sales training topic. Here are some reasons why it works. It’s actually very similar to the Ben Franklin/Rules of Reciprocity Effect.

1. It sends a subconscious message to your prospect about how your organization handles business, not just what you do.  
2. It provides real accountability for SDR, AE, and the Prospect. 
3. The multi-touch increases the knowledge transfer to the prospect from short term to long term memory, thereby increasing the urgency and importance factor the prospect feels around your solution.
4. This increased urgency and importance works to make them feel obligated to “return the favor” by showing up.
5. If they do not show up, when they do finally respond, they again feel obligated to apologize. This actually gives you a “boost” of confidence going into the conversation. Often because we feel like “they owe us something”.

Define Your No Show Process

What do you do when someone does actually no-show? It’s fairly simple, just like prospecting, there is a sequence or cadence to it. We like to teach it this way, feel free to tweak as you see fit. 

1. Can be SDR or AE managed 
2. 7 Attempts
   1. Two by mail
   2. Three by phone
   3. Two by LinkedIn (1 AE and 1 BDR) 
   4. or 1 LI and 1 Text

If you need advice or help with reducing and rescheduling no-shows, contact us here.

Check out our 4 Week N.E.A.T. Selling™ Training & Reinforcement Program here or our self-paced individual and team trainings here.