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Ask HN: Doing cold emails? helps us prove this concept for closing more leads

8 points by going_to_800 ↗ HN
Hey guys,

It all starts from this, the problem: 1) prospects lose interest/engagement over email 2) people want quick answers

One solution is phone calls, but as you know, those are so hard to get.

Our idea/concept to solve this is to let people switch from email to private live-chat by clicking a chat link in the email and sending them to a chat page, because:

1)It's much easier to get prospects on live chat than phone. From there you can escalate to a call easier.

2)You can give answers and deal with objections in real time

3)You can close or qualify leads on the spot, instead waiting for 5 back and forth emails

We already have a few guys getting very promising results, but we need more users to get the statistical significance faster.

a) What do you think about this concept? b) What stops you from using this on your business?

Thanks a lot

12 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 33.0 ms ] thread
manidoraisamy
a) I think it is a great idea. b) My co-founder already does something similar on LinkedIn. He sends a LinkedIn request if there is interest to the email and chats on that. Seems to work well. If you can remove the friction of connecting on LinkedIn, it might work quite well.
notahacker
A few points

(1) Some industries use live chat substantially more than others. Many developers will prefer it to a phone call; other workers more inclined to communicate quicker and more effectively by talking than typing.

(2) You're not really replacing 5 back-and-forth emails with the average person. You're replacing asking the prospect to either phone you back or send one email suggesting a time to call them. (If they take 5 emails before they agree to talk to you, they probably won't click on your live chat link either)

(3) Live chat actually has most of the perceived disadvantages of both email (lots of typing, uncertainty over when the other party will actually reply when initiating contact, less human interaction, permanent record of any mistakes) and telephone (immediate response expected once the conversation has started, irrespective of interruptions or whether it's a really complicated question)

I can imagine this working pretty well for selling to developers and startups and pretty badly for selling to (e.g) other salespeople, professional services, traditional middle management.

going_to_800
We don't have enough data yet, but seems to work better on people who use the computer often. Older demo or people who are on the go constantly, prefer phone calls obviously.

As far as disadvantages, this is not a replacement to email or phone, it's more to get faster the call/meeting. You let people chose how to get in touch first and chat has much less friction than phone calls...

You can also use it to warm up leads

tmaly
I like the idea of being able to switch to live chat, but how would you be on call 24/7 that is a lot of effort.
going_to_800
You don't have to, it has an email fallback
nibs
How do your customers contact you? That is how you should approach prospects. If they use the phone, so do you, etc.

A) It depends on the market you are selling into. I think for people >35 or non-tech people, the knowledge of live chat isn't there. We have found in our sales efforts that offering people 1. An email we monitor regularly and 2. A phone number that reaches a competent person, is best. It is pretty much 50/50 how people reach out, what matters more is how quickly you clue in to their actual problem.

B) Our market is not tech-savvy and requires us to communicate using more typical business communication methods such as email and phone (as opposed to live chat). We tried live chat, and no one ever used it. It was more overhead to support (be online, etc.) than it gained us. The answer lies in who you sell to.

going_to_800
Thanks for you sharing your thoughts.

How did you tried live-chat? As a website widget? or "add me on skype" ? Both are totally different than our solution.

Website widget is inbound so it has a different focus than outbound live-chat, like we are offering. There are many differences between live-chat widget and our tool http://www.chatpage.io/#why-not-livechat-widgets

I'm curious what you tried with live-chat, if not website widget I assume Skype?

Skype has also I high friction, you need to add the person and it's kinda personal. What we offer brings you in a chat page by just a click.

nibs
We used a website widget. On reflection, it would have been nice to have Skype integration, but it wasn't possible at the time. I see what you are referring to. I have no experience with outbound chat. That seems like a good idea. I have found my favourite way to receive cold email is to email back whether we are interested or not and if I am, it is nice if the sender links their calendar in their signature so I can schedule it based on what works for me. I don't think I would take the step to live chat either way though because usually I batch process emails and have other things on my mind in that moment.
going_to_800
I'm glad to get insights of how people perceive cold emails, thanks.

The thing with the schedule link is interesting. The tool has a schedule form that can be set as default...after the prospect clicks on the link, the schedule form will appear.

I thing it depends on the email you are getting and the timing you open the email. If you don't have a big "batch" to process, like in the middle of the day and the mail says "are you free on __ for a call or if you prefer, we can have now a 3 minutes chat" ... or something like this, I think busy people are more likely to click the chat link instead scheduling phone calls.

nibs
Worth trying if nothing else than for the novelty. The other thing we learned with cold emails is don't even bother unless the email is so well targeted you are speaking to an actual customer problem. Obviously 100% hit rate is not the goal, but we have become more ruthless about eliminating companies on the fridges of qualifying as a lead. Lots of activity is only good if it is to genuinely qualified leads. We don't send many emails but have a very high response rate (~20-30% depending on the campaign). It helps to be in a mature market, though.
JSeymourATL
> b) What stops you from using this on your business?

Old school sales leaders can be slow adopters of new technology. Especially, if they don't see relevance with their target prospects demo. However, success stories sell.

Read up on Marc Benioff's Seed-and-Grow strategy. You might selectively qualify some companies for an unlimited free trial so you can build your success stories bank and tweak the product with a robust feedback loop.