Upselling & Cross-Selling for Service Reps

Although upselling and cross-selling are two very simple sales techniques that can effectively increase your bottom line, many sales and service reps are hesitant to use them.

Many reps are comfortable with their service jobs and they just don’t want to sell.  They dislike being perceived as ‘pushy’.  Others fear rejection.  If the customer rejects their offer, they feel rejected personally.  And still others simply believe that the customers know best and that they have no business suggesting anything additional to them.

If this is the way your reps feel, I’ve got two scenarios here for you to introduce to them that may change their minds.  Number one.  You rep goes to a sporting goods store and purchases a pair of the latest running shoes for RM399.  At the end of the day, she meets a friend who’s just purchased an identical pair of shoes from the same shop for RM299.  Now, is your rep upset?  Probably.  So she goes back to the shop to complain only to find that if she had purchased two pairs of shoes, like her friend did, she would have paid only RM299 a pair.  So is she still upset?  Probably.  Why?  Because the salesperson should have told her about this and left it up to her to decide whether she wanted to increase the purchase.

It usually doesn’t take long after this for her to realize that if she’d been the salesperson, making the offer would have been providing a service.

Here’s another scenario.  Suppose your rep is invited by a friend to attend a weekend camping trip with a group of people in Johor.  The friend tells your rep what he has to bring along, but he neglects to tell him to bring a swimsuit.  As it turns out, the camping area has a large swimming pool and a nearby waterfall where everybody spends most of their time during the weekend.  Now, is your rep upset?  Probably.  Why?  Because his friend should have told him to bring a swimsuit.  It was wrong for the friend to assume that he should know what to bring.  By not telling him, he did him a disservice.

Again, it shouldn’t take long for your rep to realize that he is the one who knows your products, he’s the one who knows what goes with what, and he’s the one who knows how the customers can save money.  By not sharing this information with customers, he’s doing them an equal disservice.

If your sales and service reps aren’t upselling and cross-selling, find out why and get to work on changing those results.  Upselling and cross-selling not only increase business on your calls, but also keep your customers happy.