Dormant leads: a six-month-old enquiry list is worth a message

An enquiry that went quiet six months ago is not dead; it is a person who asked you something and never got a reason to answer again. Many owners hold a few hundred such names in a notebook, a phone or a portal. The way to restart the talk is to sort them by what each person asked for, then send one short message that refers to that and asks one easy question. The message that restarts talk is often not the one with the offer.

Why do enquiries go dormant?

Four reasons come up again and again, and the message you send depends on which one it was.

• They were not ready. They were gathering information for a decision months away.
• They bought elsewhere. Fast.
• Your quotation got no reply. It sat in their inbox, or they thought it too high and said nothing.
• You never replied properly. The enquiry arrived, got one message, and was dropped.

You will not know which until you ask. Your records give hints. If the last entry says "quotation sent", it is the third kind. If there is no entry after the first message, it is the fourth.

Step one: sort the list by what they asked for

A list sorted by date tells you nothing. Add one column, "asked about", and sort by it. Then add a second column with the last thing that happened.

Remove from the list numbers that do not exist, people who asked you to stop, and anyone you know has bought. What is left is your call list.

Step two: pick the groups worth the effort

You do not need to message everyone at once. Start with the group that is most likely to say yes soonest, usually the ones who received a quotation, because they were furthest along. Next come site visits, then first-message-only enquiries.

If the list is large, take twenty names from one group and see what comes back before doing the rest. This is how you learn which wording works for your buyers.

Step three: the one-line messages

Each message names what they asked about, says how long it has been, and asks a question that is easy to answer. Three samples, which you should rewrite in your own voice:

For a quotation with no reply. "Hello [Name], this is Ajay from [firm]. Some months ago I sent you a quote for the 3-track sliding windows. Did the house plans change, or is it still on?"

For a site visit. "Hello [Name], Ajay here from [firm]. We visited your plot some months ago for the door and window set. Is the building at the stage where windows are being decided?"

For a first-message-only enquiry. "Hello, Ajay from [firm]. You asked about a balcony grill and I think we never sent you a proper reply, and that was our lapse. Would you still like a quote? I can send three options by WhatsApp."

Notice the shape. A name, a reference, a real question. No offer, no "exciting news", no paragraph about how long you have been in business. The person can answer with two words.

Hold the price for the reply, not the first message.

What to do with each answer

• "Still thinking." Ask what the decision depends on, and put a date in your diary.
• "Bought already." Thank them, ask in a line how they found the supplier, and remove them. That answer is worth knowing.
• "Too expensive." Now is the time to talk price, because they have told you the reason. Ask what the other quote looked like, and whether it covers the same specification.
• No reply. One more try on a different day, then park them. Do not message the same person five times.

For example: an aluminium-windows fabricator in Kochi

This case is invented. A fabricator in Kochi kept enquiries in a diary and on WhatsApp. When business slowed after the monsoon, a relative of the owner pulled out about two hundred names from the previous year and added the "asked about" column.

The first idea was to message all two hundred with a "festive discount". The mistake was visible within the first ten replies: half the people had no idea which enquiry the message referred to, and two replied "who is this?". The round stopped and followed the steps above. Quotation-sent names got the first message; the site-visit group got the second.

In the first group of thirty, some replied that the house was still under construction. Those went onto a follow-up list with the month they expected to reach windows. One or two asked for a revised quote, and no order came that month. Expect modest results. The gain comes from people who were already a step from ordering.

When it is not worth doing

Skip a reactivation round if your records are so thin that you cannot say what anyone asked for. A message that guesses wrongly loses trust. Start recording now, and run the exercise later.

Skip it, too, if you cannot answer a reply within the day. Restarting twenty conversations you cannot keep up with is worse than leaving them still. Check, too, that you may message the list. Our post on reactivating dormant customers covers people who bought. Rules on commercial messages differ by state and body and change, so check with your own adviser.

Sort twenty names this week

Add the "asked about" column, pick the twenty furthest-along names and send the first message. Keep a note of each reply. Once those twenty have answered, the rest of the list can follow the same way. If you would rather hand the sorting and the messages to someone else, missed and dormant lead recovery is the service for it, and the marketing hub shows the wider picture. To have us look at your own list with you, tell us what you need.