How to Follow Up With a Client Who Is Not Responding

By Abdullahi Abdirahman, Founder & Editor, SoftReviewLab. Updated November 2026.

Short answer: knowing how to follow up with a client who is not responding is mostly about pacing: send three or four short follow-ups spaced further apart each time, for example after 3, 7, 14 and 21 working days. Make each one easy to answer: a single question, something useful, or a different channel such as a call. Finish with a polite “closing the loop” message that gives them an easy way to say no. Most deals that go quiet are lost to busy calendars, not to a firm no, so persistence works, as long as every message gives the client a reason to reply rather than just repeating “just checking in”.

The follow-up advice is my own; the monday CRM details come from monday.com’s own pages and my monday.com review, checked in October 2026. This article contains affiliate links; see our affiliate disclosure.

Why Clients Go Quiet

Silence feels like rejection, but it rarely is. In most cases one of these is happening:

• They are busy. Your proposal is one of forty things on their list, and it slid down this week.
• They aren’t the one who decides. They passed it to a manager or partner and are waiting too.
• The price or scope worries them, and saying so feels awkward.
• The timing changed: a budget freeze, a holiday, a project pushed back.
• They chose someone else and didn’t want to tell you.

Only the last one is a real no, and even that is worth knowing. A good follow-up is designed to find out which of these you are dealing with.

Check Your Last Message First

Before you send anything new, reread what you sent last. Many clients go quiet because the last message didn’t ask them to do anything.

• Did it end with one clear question or next step, or with “let me know your thoughts”?
• Was the important part, such as the price or the start date, easy to find, or buried in an attachment?
• Did you give a reason to decide now, such as a start date that fills up?

If the answer is no, your first follow-up should fix that, not repeat it.

A Follow-Up Sequence That Doesn’t Annoy

Space the messages out and change what each one does. The gaps below suit most service and B2B sales; shorten them for small, quick purchases. If you write the messages in advance, Gmail’s schedule send can hold each one until its date; just cancel the rest as soon as the client replies.

• After 2 to 3 working days: a short nudge with one question. “Did the proposal reach the right person, or should I send it to someone else too?”
• After a week: something useful. Answer a question they raised, send a short example of similar work, or offer a smaller first step.
• After two weeks: a different channel. Call, or send a brief WhatsApp or LinkedIn message if that is how you have spoken before. Some people never read email.
• After three to four weeks: close the loop. Say you will stop following up and make it easy to reply with a no.

Write down every attempt and its date. Without a record, follow-ups either stop after one try or turn into six messages in two weeks.

Messages You Can Copy

Change the details so each message sounds like you, and keep them short enough to read on a phone.

The first nudge, after a proposal: “Hi Laura, I wanted to make sure the proposal reached you. Is the start date of 15 March still realistic on your side, or should we look at April?”

Adding value, after a week: “Hi Laura, you mentioned that keeping the old supplier’s data was a worry. Here is how we handled that for a similar client last year, in two paragraphs. Happy to talk it through if useful.”

After a meeting that went well: “Hi Omar, thanks again for Tuesday. You said you would check the budget with Sam. Would it help if I joined a 15-minute call with both of you to answer his questions?”

Closing the loop: “Hi Laura, I haven’t heard back, so I’ll assume the timing isn’t right and stop chasing. If things change, just reply to this email and I’ll pick it up from here. And if you went with someone else, a one-line reply would really help me.”

The closing message often gets the most replies, because it removes the pressure and gives a polite way out.

When to Stop

After the closing message, stop. Mark the deal as lost with a reason, even if the reason is “no reply”, and set a reminder to check in once more in three months with something new. People who went quiet because of timing often come back, but only if you are still in touch without being a nuisance.

If several deals go quiet at the same stage, look at that stage, not at the clients. A pattern of silence after the proposal usually means the price arrives as a surprise or the proposal is hard to say yes to.

When You Have Too Many Clients to Remember

With a handful of open deals, a calendar reminder for each follow-up is enough. Past that, things slip: you can’t remember who got the second message, a colleague follows up on a client you already called, and the closing message never goes out. The fix is a system that holds the dates and reminds the right person, and monday CRM is the one I tested for this job.

Before you pay for anything, a free tracker may be enough: my guide on how to track sales leads for free shows how to set one up with a next-step date for every lead.

What Is monday CRM?

monday CRM is monday.com’s tool for sales teams. Each deal is a row on a board, with columns for its owner, stage, value and next step, so you can see every open conversation and where it stands.

How monday CRM Reminds You to Follow Up

Automations can notify the owner when a deal’s follow-up date arrives and alert them when an item is overdue. With Gmail or Outlook connected, the emails you exchange with a client are logged against their deal, so anyone picking it up can see what was last said.

How It Stops Deals Going Quiet on Your Side

The client may go silent, but your follow-up no longer depends on someone remembering. Every quiet deal has a date and an owner, and the reminder arrives whether or not anyone opens the board that day. Before you pick a plan, look for custom automations on monday.com’s pricing page: it doesn’t list them on CRM Basic. In my own trial I built a status-change automation on the Deals board, the same kind of rule a follow-up reminder uses. Watch the monthly limit, though: Standard includes 250 automation actions a month, and a team of five that each gets three reminders a day uses 300 in 20 working days.

When it isn’t worth it: if you work alone with a few open deals, a calendar or a spreadsheet does the job for nothing, and monday CRM’s three-seat minimum means a team of one or two pays for seats it doesn’t use.

My monday.com review covers plans, limits and trade-offs. If it fits, you can try monday CRM free for 14 days with your own open deals.

How to Set Up Follow-Up Reminders in monday CRM

If you try it, build the sequence above into the board rather than relying on memory. Run the trial on the plan you would actually buy, so the automations you set up are ones you keep.

Add a Follow-Up Date and an Attempts Column

On your deals board, add a date column for the next follow-up and a number column for how many times you have tried. Those two fields are the whole sequence in data form.

Turn the Date Into a Reminder

Create an automation that notifies the deal owner when the follow-up date arrives, and another that alerts them when it has passed without being updated. These replace the sticky notes and the morning scroll through your inbox.

Use a Stage for Deals Waiting on the Client

Add a stage such as “Waiting for reply”, so quiet deals don’t hide among active ones. When the attempts column reaches four and the closing message has gone out, move the deal to Lost with a reason.

Connect Your Email

Connect Gmail or Outlook so every message to and from the client is logged on the deal. When they finally reply, whoever picks it up can see the whole conversation.

Review Quiet Deals Once a Week

Filter the board for deals in “Waiting for reply” and go through them in a weekly sales meeting or on your own. If one stage keeps filling up, that is where your process needs work. My guide on how to stop losing leads as your team grows covers the rest of that process.

If you are comparing it with the best-known free option, my monday CRM vs HubSpot CRM comparison sets the two side by side.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many times should I follow up with a client who doesn’t respond?

Three or four follow-ups after your original message is a sensible limit for most B2B sales, spaced further apart each time and ending with a closing message. After that, stop and check in again in a few months with something new.

How long should I wait before following up?

Two to three working days after a proposal or a meeting is enough for the first nudge. After that, leave about a week, then two, then three to four before the closing message.

Is it rude to keep following up?

Not if each message is short, polite and gives the client something: a question, useful information or an easy way to say no. What feels rude is the same “just checking in” email every few days.

What should I do if the client finally replies with a no?

Thank them, ask briefly what made the difference, and keep the door open. The reason they give is useful for your next proposal, and a gracious reply makes it easier for them to come back later.

References

• monday.com: monday CRM
• monday.com: Pricing
• SoftReviewLab: monday.com review 2026
• How SoftReviewLab researches and writes its articles