
Ask HN: Doing cold emails? helps us prove this concept for closing more leads - going_to_800
Hey guys,<p>It all starts from this, the problem:
1) prospects lose interest&#x2F;engagement over email
2) people want quick answers<p>One solution is phone calls, but as you know, those are so hard to get.<p>Our idea&#x2F;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:<p>1)It&#x27;s much easier to get prospects on live chat than phone. From there you can escalate to a call easier.<p>2)You can give answers and deal with objections in real time<p>3)You can close or qualify leads on the spot, instead waiting for 5 back and forth emails<p>We already have a few guys getting very promising results, but we need more users to get the statistical significance faster.<p>a) What do you think about this concept? 
b) What stops you from using this on your business?<p>Thanks a lot
======
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](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.

------
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

------
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.

------
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.

------
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

------
going_to_800
More about this on [http://chatpage.io](http://chatpage.io)

