Stop Ghosting Your Customers: Three Ways to Build Trust

Are you ghosting your customers? Many businesses complain about customers not showing up for meetings, not responding to calls and messages, and not following through on their tasks during onboarding and beyond. "Ghosting" describes the practice of not communicating and disappearing without a trace. Customers who don’t respond are often a symptom of you ghosting them. Engaging new customers as soon as the deal closes and providing continuity from the buyer journey to the customer journey are key to building mutually prosperous relationships.

Due to the brain’s inner workings, people tend to dwell in fear and doubt, especially when starting new experiences like making major purchases or implementing new software. When customers don’t encounter a clear ending to the buying process, their minds fill the vacuum with stories about what happens next—usually worst-case scenarios. They start new relationships with dread rather than assurance.

For example, after a major house purchase, the author describes selecting a solar panel vendor after extensive research, signing the contract, and paying the deposit—only to be abandoned with no communication. This lack of information led to worry and second-guessing the decision.

This situation could have been avoided with cognitive closure. Cognitive closure is the stopping mechanism that applies “brakes” to the validating process and allows crystallized judgments to form. Closure stops the uncertainty, confusion, and ambiguity of anticipating the future without clear guidance because it provides definite answers to the questions the brain keeps asking itself.

A prescriptive onboarding process, such as the Orchestrated Onboarding framework, can provide customers with clear beginnings, handoffs, kickoffs, milestones, and deliverables. When customers know what happens next, they relax and trust you.

Three Ways to Stop Ghosting Your Customers with Cognitive Closure and Continuity

1. 1.

   Send a welcome email.

   • ​As soon as a deal closes, send an automated welcome email thanking the customer and detailing the journey ahead. Let customers know the general timeline for what happens next and who they will work with.
2. 2.

   Provide a visual overview of the journey ahead.

   • ​Visuals help calm neural networks and provide an overview of how you will work together to achieve customer outcomes. Showing the journey you are embarking on provides continuity from the buyer journey to the customer journey and instills trust. Keep this information high level.
3. 3.

   Customer handoff.

   • ​Instead of discarding the relationship collateral sales reps generate, include customer handoffs to formally transition from the established relationship to the post-sales teams customers will interface with moving forward.

Many sales reps worry these details will overwhelm customers and scare them away, but they don’t. For example, an automated welcome email with a visual overview of the process and a brief call to introduce the post-sales team would have made a significant difference for the author. Closure and continuity instill confidence because customers see you know what you’re doing and have done it before.

The choice to churn or renew is determined during onboarding. Ignoring customer needs and concerns leads to negative opinions they will remember and share with others. Customers who feel ignored or mistreated may pause, cancel payments, or move elsewhere. What sets you apart from your competitors is much more than your product. Rather than letting customers ruminate, determine what you want them to think and feel after they purchase your product. Most likely, you want them to trust they’re in capable hands and to feel confident they made the right decision.