Customer asks the price, then goes silent. What should you do?
Short answer: When a customer goes silent after asking the price, it is rarely because your price is too high — it is because they received a number without context, and went off to compare. Two things are proven to help: give the price together with what is included and the next step, and reply within the first hour — a Harvard Business Review study shows leads go cold seven times over after that. Follow-ups help, but they only patch a weak first reply.
Is this really the biggest problem WhatsApp sellers have?
We analysed 79 public Threads posts in Malay about WhatsApp customer service. The theme that got the most engagement was not "slow replies". It was this:
"Customer dah tanya harga. Kau dah explain. Dah hantar proposal. Lepas tu — senyap. Kau pun follow up sekali. Dia reply 'nanti saya fikir dulu.' Dan kau tak tahu nak cakap apa dah."
— @kairelkeflee, Threads, 16 May 2026 (166 likes, 56 replies)
[Customer asked the price. You explained. Sent the proposal. Then — silence. You followed up once. They replied "let me think about it." And you no longer know what to say.]
"Penat nak reply customer, habis tanya harga, itinerary habis tu hilang... tiada jawapan.."
— @pakejmurahpadang, Threads, 27 July 2026
[Tiring replying to customers — they ask the price, the itinerary, then vanish… no answer.]
Why do customers go quiet after getting the price?
From the customer's side, the story is different:
"Tanya harga pun salah. Survey pun dikata fussy."
— @ris.afina, Threads (1,883 likes, 269 replies)
[Asking the price is wrong. Shopping around gets you called fussy.]
A customer asks the price at five shops. That is normal. What decides which shop they come back to is which one replied like a human who understood them — not the one that pasted a number.
"Customer tanya harga. Jgn terus jwb harga. Sbb kadang2 yg dia cari bukan harga paling murah, tapi sbb knp dia patut bayar."
— @xhalimrahmanx, Threads, 24 August 2026
[Customer asks the price. Don't just answer the price. Sometimes what they're looking for isn't the cheapest price, but the reason they should pay.]
How fast should a price be answered?
This is not opinion. Harvard Business Review studied 1.25 million leads:
"Firms that tried to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving a query were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead… as those that tried to contact the customer even an hour later—and more than 60 times as likely as companies that waited 24 hours or longer."
— Oldroyd, McElheran & Elkington, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, Harvard Business Review, March 2011
That study was about web forms and email, not WhatsApp. But if a web-form lead goes cold within an hour, a WhatsApp lead — someone holding their phone right now — goes cold faster. A customer who asks at 11pm and is answered at 8am has spent the whole night comparing with other shops.
Is automatic follow-up the solution?
Half of it. Most tools sell "auto follow-up" — send another message after 24 hours. It is useful. But one seller wrote this, and we think he is right:
"Aku jenis tak suka follow up customer bila dorang tanya harga pakej… Tak nak buat customer rimas kita asyik spam desperate nak sales."
— @ziyaaothman, Threads (135 likes)
[I'm the type who doesn't like following up when customers ask about package prices… I don't want customers to feel harassed by us spamming, desperate for a sale.]
Follow-up patches a weak first reply. If the first reply already gives the price together with what the customer gets, the difference between packages, and one closing question — you need follow-up less, because the conversation does not die there.
What does a price reply that keeps the conversation alive look like?
| Customer | Reply that kills it | Reply that keeps it going |
|---|---|---|
| "how much is this bawal scarf?" | "RM35" | "RM35 each, or 3 for RM99. Free shipping in Peninsular Malaysia, add RM10 for Sabah/Sarawak. Colours left: navy, dusty pink, black. Which colour shall I hold for you?" |
| "how much is package A?" | "RM1,200" | "Package A is RM1,200 — includes X, Y, Z. The difference from Package B is W. Which date are you looking at?" |
The right-hand column has four parts: the price, what is included, what is left or different, and one question. All from information the owner wrote once.
How does Merpati handle it?
The owner writes the price reply once, with context — and the AI sends that same precise reply every time, even at 11pm. If a customer asks something that is not in the owner's information, the AI does not guess; it tells the customer it will check first. If the customer still goes quiet, the AI knows when to send one follow-up — and when to stop, the moment the customer says they are not interested.
Try it with your own product
Sign up at merpati.my, type your price reply once with context, connect the WhatsApp number you already use. Compare how many go silent this week versus last week.
Sources
- James B. Oldroyd, Kristina McElheran, David Elkington, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, Harvard Business Review, March 2011 — hbr.org/2011/03/the-short-life-of-online-sales-leads
- Public Threads posts by @kairelkeflee (16 May 2026), @pakejmurahpadang (27 July 2026), @ris.afina, @ziyaaothman, @xhalimrahmanx (24 August 2026) — collected 2 September 2026, quoted verbatim in the original Malay with our translation in brackets.