Wednesday October 27, 2021

Ghosting

Are you keeping the conversation going or leaving people feeling cold?

This relatively new term ‘ghosting’ has come about from dating and online dating to be clear. The idea you have a dialogue, chat and actively communicate, perhaps even meet, and then nothing. No further contact. No response. All communication is stopped. You may even be blocked.

The person falls away, as if they never existed. The whole process can leave you feeling cold.

This tactic appears to be used when people fail to want to deal with something or simply say no thanks I can’t deal with this, you’re not my type, I’m no longer interested.

But what is unsettling is seeing this behaviour in business.

A submitted business proposal, no comment

An enquiry, no reply

A question, no response

An interview, no follow-up – I thought this never happened, but it does.

Bad communication or a lack of communication can happen in business because a business is unable to cope or monitor all the communication platforms, and let’s be honest there are loads.

WhatsApp, text, Messenger, email and all the social media messaging options, to mention a few.

It can also happen in a business because the culture of the business doesn’t respect people. Remember the culture starts at the top of the chain, look up, if you’re unsure where it comes from.

If you are a business that is struggling to keep up with the demands of all your communication channels, you need to get help. As an easy way to respond and manage day to day enquiries is to activate auto-response on all your message channels and reply when you will respond, set a time and expectation that is realistic. 

Try to drive enquiries to one portal, we suggest email in most cases. Then you or the team can monitor this platform in the knowledge that if the query or question is genuine it will arrive in your inbox.

Where possible, if you are selling, active on social and are pushing a service, anticipate replies, questions and comments and get ready to respond. Don’t drive a campaign and then ignore the responses.

Please don’t leave your customers in the cold, it’s bad for business.

And our advice about the customers that don’t respond to you after you’ve taken the time to send a proposal, submit a quote, and answer endless questions. Get to know how to ask the right questions, in the first instance. Ask what their budget is, how many other businesses they are asking to submit quotes and be prepared that you won’t be successful on every submitted quote.

And maybe consider charging a nominal fee for a quote if it takes you ages, on the understanding it is fully refundable against the future project work. It makes people think.

With thanks to Wiki for this insight when I searched Ghosting:

Ghosting, also known as simmering or icing, is a colloquial term which describes the practice of ending all communication and contact with another person without any apparent warning or justification and subsequently ignoring any attempts to reach out or communication made by said person.

If you need help with your business content, website and marketing – get in contact, we promise not to ignore you!
Lucy@wearemadcreative.com