There is a problem that a lot of B2B brands can relate to:

• You get 100 demos but then only 60 show up.

• You get 1000 registrants to a webinar but only 200 people show up.

• You get 100 new customers but only 40 take you up on onboarding.

This fall-off cuts into your margins in a big way, and like churn, if you can reduce no-shows by even a few percentage points, it becomes a huge growth lever for the business.

Ontraport's no-show problem:

Ontraport, an inbound marketing SaaS company, had the no-show problem. Nearly 40% of their demo calls and 25% of their new customer onboarding calls were no-showing to meetings. 

They were doing all the conventional things. Sending automated reminders from their booking tool, confirming meeting time on the thank you page, they even tried text reminders. But nothing was affecting the no-show rate. 

When it comes to no-shows, there are a few commons reasons they happen:

• Confusion on timing: Especially if you deal with international clients, sometimes they are confused about the correct time.

• Thinking it’s automated/slide deck: Sometimes people opt-in thinking it’s an automated demo or presentation and don’t realize it’s 1:1 call

• Lack of anticipation/interest: People will book and then find another more interesting platform or just get too busy. They aren’t strongly committed.

How Ontraport found a solution:

In June of 2018, Ontraport decided to design a test that would speak to these common areas for no-shows. For half of their incoming demo and onboarding calls, they went with their current processes, and for the other half they decided to try a personal touch via a Bonjoro video email.

Whenever a call was booked for a demo or onboarding call, the Ontraport rep would fire over a video like this:

The videos were successful in addressing all of the core issues people typically have with no-shows:

1. Clarified the exact time

2. It puts a human face behind the call. The recipient now knows for certain it’s a live call and they know someone took the time to personally welcome them. 

3. Oftentimes the team would include personal details about their brand, “We work with a lot of eCommerce companies and what we have seen work well is….”

Ontraport's results with personalized videos:

Over the course of the next six months the personal, high touch test reduced no-show rates by 15% and led to tens of thousands of dollars in downstream revenue.

One of the things I loved about this use case was the fact that they ran a control, which gives us the opportunity to really see the impact of this specific initiative.

The videos performed best when recorded as close as possible to the time of the booking and NOT the time of the meeting. That way, the personal touch landed when the prospect was still in the headspace of interest around the software.

They were also buoyed by strong open rates the personal touches delivered (about 20-30% above baseline average).

Start reducing your own no-shows right now

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