How to Up-sell With Integrity in 3 Simple Steps

Last time I spoke about the perils of perfection paralysis and the four things that I do,or try to do, to break out of it.

You might recall that step-two is to break down your project into bite-sized, manageable chunks.

Step-four is to manage yourself to a process,that is the individual chunks, rather than theoutcome or completed project. As with so much basic wisdom, this is far easier said than done.

Take for example the goal of increasing the average value of a transaction per customer. I’m not talking about raising prices per se, but ratherfinding opportunities to add additional value to yourcustomer that they wouldn’t otherwise get if you didn’t offer it.

This is called up-selling; a concept many people grasp,but don’t necessarily execute well.

Think about your experience at a movie theater or fast foodrestaurant.  You’ve likely been asked if you “want frieswith that Coke”, or if you’d like to “supersize yourorder for $0.50 more.”  Trite – I know, but itillustrates my point.

I’ve been working with a technology services company to help them boost the average value of each transactionper customer.

Normally, a technician goes on a service call, fixes the problem they were called upon to fix, and departs with a friendly offer to “call us again if you ever needed techsupport.”

At best, the technicians might occasionally ask the customer if they would like anything else; perhaps a memory upgrade, or a backup solution, or a bit of productivity training, to which the customer wouldusually say, “No thanks.  I’m all set.”

To up-sell effectively, you need to do three things:

First, it’s important to approach the up-sell, not fromthe perspective of boosting revenues, but rather from the perspective of finding more service opportunities. In other words, your job is to find additional ways to add real value.  In this way you’ll tap into your service orientation, and your customers and prospects will feel your sincerity.

Second, you must thoughtfully probe for more opportunities to serve. Whether the opportunity is a chance to enter a contest, save money now or in the future, reduce hassles,or get something extra,  depends on your business. If you give it some thought, I know you’ll be able to find ways to offer “fries with that Coke”, or a chance to “supersize for only $.50 more.”

Third, you must script your delivery so that: a) the benefits of your offer are clear. b) there is relevance to the customer or prospect, and c) there is a reason to act now. Here is how I tied it all together for the technologyservices company.

During the service call, the technicians were instructed to keep a sharp eye out for vulnerabilities, orperformance enhancements, or training opportunities that the customer might appreciate knowing about, but were outside the scope of the service call.

For example, if children are in the house, the technician could ask, “I notice you have children. Do you have mechanisms in place to protect them from accidentally accessing inappropriate content on-line?  No! Would you like me to set that up for you?” Up-sell opportunity!

If financial data, or music, or photos, or projects are stored on the computer, the technician could ask,”It appears you have lots of valuable data on this computer. Do you have a reliable back-up method to insure your data is never lost or destroyed?”  Up-sell opportunity!

You get the idea.  Simple observations. Simple questions. Sincere offers.  Remember, if you don’t ask you don’t get.