November,
2002
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Upselling: It's Sales AND Service |
People often regard upselling and cross-selling as sales techniques: sales strategies to increase sales. Yet each has a customer service component to them as well. I prefer to think of them as forms of both sales and customer service. When a customer calls to purchase one product or service, and you offer them a better, more appropriate or more versatile product you are fulfilling additional needs. That's a form of service! When you receive a call from a current or potential customer, your full array of products and services is often at your customer's disposal. By employing your listening skills, asking pertinent questions, and thus better understanding how they intend to use your product(s), you may uncover additional needs, more elegant solutions or advantageous strategies they may employ. You're delivering service when you cross sell or upsell. Let's review a typical interaction. A customer calls with a stated need. 1. You, as a knowledgeable rep, know the product lines best: their strengths and weaknesses. You've done your homework and know all of your products' and services' capabilities and compatibilities. 2. You, as a skilled listener and problem solver, understand their needs and can make informed recommendations. You ask closed-ended questions to determine a baseline of pertinent information; you ask open-ended questions to elicit details of the customers' experience, intentions and understandings. 3. You, as a persuasive and skilled rep, can make the additional sale. Listening to their current needs and anticipating future needs, you can identify products or services to solve tomorrow's dilemmas as well as today's problems. You may even show customers better and more innovative ways they can conduct their business. In the course of these conversations you may offer them training or consulting to accompany their sales, companion products to accompany their primary purchase, or other additional or more powerful tools and services for success. Suppose that you are selling transaction commerce systems by telephone from a call center. As calls come in, follow these techniques: Ask Questions to Uncover Needs:
Listen Intently:
Know Your Product Line:
Propose Solutions:
Action Steps:
When you up-sell and cross sell effectively, Click here for more sales tools
Craig Harrison is a professional speaker, corporate trainer and consultant who provides sales and service solutions through speaking. Contact him as for more information: Craig@VoiceOfCustomerService.com, www.ExpressionsOfExcellence.com, or by phone: (510) 547-0664.
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