To Upsell or Not to Upsell?

Upselling… a common term within the service industry! why do we upsell? What is its importance?

Well, upselling is a tool which helps any service provider to offer a product with a little more cost or offer add-ons to earn some additional profit. This is a simple definition which is a major important tool for any service industry.

However, for me….its has been a very crucial tool for “Customer Retention” / Customer Satisfaction”.

How Customer Retention you may ask and why?

Let’s consider a simple example, 

I was handling a wedding event of 1200 guests, my guest was not too aware of hotel policies and the processes. Hence, I had taken the responsibility of handling everything for him, be it Menus, Setup, Entertainment, etc. 

He wasn’t a guest who would negotiate or question the price extended. For the cost he was paying i decided to offer him a residential room for his wife and him along with a room for the bride and the groom.

So, did i upsell?? That we can debate for a very long time but i did retain a customer and earned customer loyalty. 

With this example, for me Upselling is adding value! If i add value today for my guest , i would be sanguine that he would return tomorrow and pay for the service that the hotel has to offer without considering any other competition hotel or negotiate.

Another important factor in this example is that one must add value for their customers but WITHOUT incurring any losses. I offered two residential rooms because of the revenue generated from the wedding. 

Upselling for restaurants!

Upselling can be handy for many other purposes, for example in restaurants. 

In restaurants, we can offer add ons before including them to the menu in order to receive feedback or opinion.

Let me give an example to elaborate this further; 

A cafe had been serving a certain flavored cookies with each kind of tea as an accompaniment. They did this with enthusiasm and made chefs come over to each table making the experience even more interactive. 

But over a period of time the restaurant  happened to keep them on the menu but never served alongside as before. What do you think the guests did?

Their regular customers eventually ended up buying the cookies which they had been offered earlier along with the tea they savored. Do you think this was unfair? Not really!

They added an experience for their customers and eventually hoped they would visit the cafe for more such experiences. Thus,

“Care enough to create value for customers. If you get that part right, selling is easy.” –Anthony Iannarino

This is what i believe and i must persuade all sales force to believe. 

Sell the product like its the only thing that is left to sell….and sell is with all your heart like it belongs to you! Don’t let your job take over your PASSION OF SELLING!!