Almost any industry can make customer follow-up phone calls, but very few companies and people actually do it with any consistency and regularity. Here are two things you need to do to grow your business in any economy.
1. Call your customers: For this idea, I like to use the example of the furniture industry. In that setting, why not have the sales people make a few calls to their customer base to say "hello" rather than just standing around talking to each other waiting for someone to walk into the store. The phone call could go something like this: "Hello Mr. Jones, this is Hal calling from XYZ and I want to thank you for your purchase of the couch. If you were to buy furniture for any other room in your house which room would you be thinking about? It would be great if you kept us in mind … thank you."
That same salesperson should be calling their customer at least three times per year just to say "hi" and hope they are enjoying the furniture and say nothing else. No sales pitch, just a thank you call to keep their name in front of the customer.