We've spent plenty of time on openers ourselves, and they matter. But look at where the guys actually go. On social, 17,900 of the 24,865 guys we chatted to replied, 72%. Only 1,896 of them got as far as a chat that really heated up. That's all-time, our own data. The first answer is the easy part. The hard part is keeping him interested on day two, day ten and day sixty.
A clever opener can't help with that. Remembering that he works nights can.
What she keeps
Every guy has a profile built from what he says in the chat. His job, his hours, his dog, his team, what he's into, what he's said no to, when he gets paid. She also asks a question now and then to fill the gaps, one at a time and never one she already has the answer to. Newer facts replace older ones, because people change jobs and move house.
It all shows in EmpireChat -> Chats, behind the profile button. You can read what he told her in ten seconds.
Why that turns into money
It makes her worth coming back to. Free pictures are everywhere. Someone who asks how the interview went is rare. That's what he can't get from a free site, and it's the part of the product that doesn't wear off.
It wakes up quiet chats. "Hey, where did you go" is easy to ignore. "Did the night shift kill you again" is a lot harder to ignore. EmpireChat ranks follow-up lines by how often fans answer, so you can see which kinds work on your account.
It picks the right offer. If he's told her he hates something, she doesn't sell it to him. If he's told her what he likes, the offer starts there. An offer that fits needs a lot less persuasion.
It gets the timing right. He says he gets paid on Friday, and she comes back on Friday. Without memory, that sale just disappears.
It follows him across platforms. What he told her on social is there when he reaches Fanvue. He doesn't have to start over, and neither does she.
We'd love to give you a figure for how much more a well-known fan spends. We don't have a clean one, so we won't invent it. This is the logic, and we'll show the number when we have one.
Memory can go wrong
A real one from our own chats: a guy mentioned his cat's medicine. She kept bringing it up, follow-up after follow-up, until a nice detail had turned into a strange obsession. It was good memory and bad judgement. Now a follow-up doesn't go back to a subject she's already used, and she goes easy on her own life stories too.
We had the same problem with questions. A guy got asked the same thing again and again, which is the exact opposite of being listened to. She now checks what she's asked lately and what she already knows.
Some lines to hold:
- Use one detail at a time. A message that lists five facts about him reads like a file.
- Mention things the way a person would, in passing, when they fit.
- Treat the heavy stuff gently. If he's said money is tight or he's having a bad time, that's a reason to stop selling, and never something to sell on.
- Never guess. A wrong detail hurts more than no detail.
The agency angle
Human chatter turnover is commonly reported at around 2-3 months. If your fan knowledge lives in a chatter's head, it walks out with him, and your best fan gets a stranger who asks what he does for a living. Memory that sits on the account stays. When a human takes over a fan, he's got the same profile in front of him, and he doesn't have to scroll back through six months of chat.
What to do about it
- Open the profiles of your top 5 fans today. If they're thin, your chats are all talk and no listening.
- If humans chat for you, make one line of notes per fan part of every shift. Unwritten knowledge is lost knowledge.
- Look at your Follow-ups page and see whether the lines about him beat the generic ones on your account.
- Stop rewriting openers once your reply rate is fine. Put that time into what happens from the second day on.