Vent: My go-to follow-up email template got me ghosted three times in a row

I was reading a book about sales, and a line said 'people buy from people, not templates.' It made me look at my own follow-up email. I realized it was super generic, just asking 'any updates?' I changed it to mention one specific thing from our first talk, like 'I was thinking about your goal to increase sign-ups.' Since I started doing that two weeks ago, my reply rate went from zero to about half. Has anyone else found that adding one personal detail makes a big difference?

3 comments

3 Comments

beng5111d ago

Shows how generic communication gets ignored everywhere, not just in sales.

adam18611d ago

Man, that's so true. It's like we've all built up an immunity to anything that feels mass-produced. @lucashenderson really nailed it with the "background noise" thing. Where does this generic stuff do the most damage, in your opinion? Like, is it worse in job applications, dating apps, or maybe even how companies talk about big issues?

lucashenderson11d ago

Generic communication is the background noise of modern life. We delete the mass emails, skip the ads, and ignore the copy-paste messages. Your example shows the power of breaking through that noise with a single human detail. It proves people are desperate for any sign that someone actually listened to them. I see this everywhere, from customer service chats that feel robotic to social media posts that get lost in the feed. What other areas do you think suffer the most from this templated approach?