How to lose a lead in 10 days

A tale of lost leads

Every year a new trend is added to the list of frustrating experiences in the dating world. From the originals, such as catfishing and ghosting, to new entries like breadcrumbing and love bombing. As our dating etiquette suffers, how is this filtering into interactions at work?

Ahead of Valentine’s Day, Gamma polled businesses across the UK, Spain, Netherlands, and Germany to identify the dating faux pas that have made their way into the world of client acquisition. One thing is clear, many businesses are Clueless about how to treat suppliers.

As a first step, Gamma translated these habits into common behaviours seen during the client acquisition process.

• Breadcrumbing – A long, drawn out acquisition process, waiting a long time for the final decision to be confirmed.
• Love bombing – Random bursts of attention followed by long stretches of silence.
• Benching –  An informal commitment to working together is made but then dropped at the last moment.
• Catfishing – Work commences however it is not what was expected.
• Ghosting – Communication stops abruptly and never begins again.

Across the regions, breadcrumbing was the most prevalent behaviour, with over one in three (34%) respondents reporting that they had experienced long, drawn out acquisition processes, rising to 40% of respondents in Germany. This was closely followed by love bombing (31%) and benching (29%).

Although on average, ghosting was the least common (25%), it is a much more common problem for respondents in Spain, with 32% of businesses experiencing ghosting in the last year.

This isn’t About Time, we can’t replay our interactions with prospective clients time and time again, so perhaps it’s just time to admit that They’re Just Not That Into You.