Selling Tactics in the Service Industry: How to upsell/cross-sell by the book
When you think of the service industry, you don’t immediately think of selling. As a customer, it’s the industry you think you’re safe in.
When you go to the bank, you don’t think about the fact that the teller is going to tell you why you need their latest and greatest credit card; or that you definitely should take advantage of overdraft. When you go to a restaurant, you don’t think about the waitress pushing for a second drink or dessert. When you see the price for a flight, you forget seat selection charges, checked baggage, snacks on the flights, etc. The service industry catches you when you least expect it — and that feeling of being caught off guard and not being mentally prepared for buying more than what’s immediately thought of is either where you make a fortune or get nothing.
The talent of upselling and cross-selling is what you bank on in this field; and it’s not an easy task. However, if you follow these next few tactics, you’ll be a pro in no time.
UPSELLING/CROSS-SELLINGTACTIC 1: Segment your customer and retain their personal details
Before and above anything, why is your customer using your service? What objective are they trying to accomplish?
For example, at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, I’m able to segment my customers into four categories: the retail customer, the corporate customer, the insurance/body shop customer, and the dealership customer. Finding out which one they are is pretty simple — if they have a reservation, you can see what account code has been applied for their rate. But sometimes when it says “retail” it might be a corporate customer who doesn’t have an account, or someone who had their car break down for the day and needed something to get around with. This is why you ask questions anyways.
If it’s retail: “So what brings you in today? What’s on your agenda for the next couple of days? Anything interesting?”
Their answer will help you determine what it is they’re trying to accomplish — e.g. “Oh I’m just running errands and stuff not too much driving or anything” vs. “I’m going to Toronto/Montreal/The States” etc. Why is that important to you?
The little details will help you determine which products out of your hidden pricing structure that you can target and deem most appropriate for your customer’s needs. Additionally, you can personalize your sale’s pitch with the small details so that it actually sounds legitimate and genuine to their circumstance. This is important when you’re catching your customer off guard and they’re not anticipating your sales pitch.
This brings me to the next tactic.
UPSELLING/CROSS-SELLING TACTIC 2: Pick which products/services to focus on
Product knowledge is so so so essential for upselling. You have to think of how each of your products are unique from each other and which ones would be essential to the customer’s needs. The small details make a huge difference in knowing which products or service specs to focus on and which ones you won’t be as successful with (BUT — huge but — don’t “not” try on those ones because sometimes you analyzed the situation wrong and they may surprise you).
If we go back to the example of needing a rental for local use vs. needing a rental for a road trip, this is where you filter through your possible selling options. At car rental companies, there’s 3 points of sale; vehicle upselling, gas, and coverage/insurance. Let’s say the customer is all like “yeah I’m travelling with my family and we got a couple of car seats and stuff” and they book in a small car — that’s easy stuff.
The most obvious one in this case is the vehicle upsell; you can also attempt gas and insurance coverage (as you should, because you don’t know if you don’t try — see my previous blog post for more about this https://medium.com/@stefspilios/how-to-sell-101-b394151dc561), but you should focus your efforts there.
At that point, you can offer the other products, but don’t launch into as much detail as you did with the first sale because they customer will feel overwhelmed and could potentially revoke their previous actions.
If you’re pushing an offering that they have kindly immediately refused after already selling another product to them, it will make them suspicious that you don’t have their needs at heart, which could jeopardize the upsell you just made. This is where you recall the little details they just gave you — if you’re giving the customer a full tank to go to Toronto, then it makes sense for them to try to bring it back empty, because they’ll definitely be using it. However, if they’re going to Montreal, then bringing it back empty will not be convenience the customer at all unless they genuinely don’t have the time to fill it up (which is more suited for the ever time-poor, corporate customer).
This is where you tap into impulse buying by remaining low-key and casually guiding the customer’s decision in the right direction.
Which brings us to our last tactic.
UPSELLING/CROSS-SELLING TACTIC 3: Personalize the sale and let them come to the decision on their own
Now that you know a couple of personal details about what they’re doing, and you’ve recognized the best area to direct your efforts, craft it into a beautiful sales pitch that was made just for them. The facts will provide justification to your pitch, while the personalization will make it sound genuine and specific to their situation and not leave room for argument — because then they would have to argue about what they just told you. They’ll have a harder time forming a rebuttal when you’re quoting their words back to them than just spitting out random rehearsed facts about what you offer.
So going back to my example of needing a rental for local use vs. needing a rental for a road trip: You show them the upgrade first that’s got all the room and seats you can think of to get them excited about it, and then they’ll ask hopefully, “Oh, is this what I’m getting?” Then you’ll show them what they’re reserved to get, and they’ll say, “Oh, that’s not going to work.” So that’s when you’re the selling genius and say, “From what you told me, that’s what I figured.The SUV/minivan will fit everyone nice and comfortably for the long trip, and the larger engine is actually more fuel efficient on the highway for the road trip anyways. How does *x price* sound for this one?”
At this point you’ve done all that you can and you DO NOT INTERRUPT THEIR THOUGHT PROCESS because if they were slowly coming to the right conclusion you feeding more information might tip them over the optimal point of stress (that good old eustress) and will cause them to freak out and just say no.
Even though you need to take control and make it sound like you’re really telling them the best thing to do, they need to come to that conclusion themselves or else they will not trust you or the brand, and you will lose any potential sale you had.
Main take-away’s from this: 1) segment and retain detail, 2) analyze and focus efforts and 3) personalize and back off. Start applying these tactics and I can guarantee you that you will immediately notice an improvement in your selling game.
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Want my five quick and easy selling tactics that are applicable to any industry? Got check out my last blog post: https://medium.com/@stefspilios/how-to-sell-101-b394151dc561
Liked what you read? Want to read about something specific? Let me know; I’d love to hear from you! http://stefspilios.pagecloud.com/contact
Want more of a background on my experience? Check out my personal website here: http://stefspilios.pagecloud.com/about
Or my Linked In here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanie-spiliotopoulos-2bbb7a106/
Want more? Jason James does a great job explaining some of these concepts in his article, 9 Upselling & Cross Selling Techniques Anyone Can Use To Boost Revenue http://justjasonjames.com/upselling-cross-selling-techniques/
