Companies are always on the lookout for ways to increase revenue and profits.
Indeed, many businesses focus on constantly acquiring new leads through intelligent marketing and outbound contact center strategies to keep earnings high.
However, there’s another way to increase revenue, which often requires less effort: upselling.
Upselling is the art of convincing a customer to purchase something bigger or better than the product they were initially interested in.
- Purchase an annual subscription instead of a monthly service
- Opt for the more expensive version of the product, with more features
- Choose a bundle package rather than buying items separately
Studies suggest that such upselling strategies can increase revenue by 10-30 percent, on average.
Plus, upselling is up to 68 percent more cost-effective than acquiring a new customer.
Yet, businesses may worry that upselling will compromise the customer experience. The following nine tactics will help to alleviate such concerns.
1. Leverage Existing Call Data to Enhance the Upselling Program
It is often best practice to formalize an upselling strategy with clear-cut goalposts and incentives.
Analyzing conversational data may help here, using automated speech analytics to highlight the most dominant keyword trends.
Doing so helps gauge customer sentiment and areas where upselling would be most effective.
2. Train Agents to Be Engaging, Not Pushy
Sales personnel have to hit that perfect balance between being forward/aggressive and hands-off, so customers feel empowered to make their own purchase decisions.
Since inbound agents are primarily trained and experienced in support services, additional sales training is likely essential.
3. Provide Logical Incentives, Rewards, and Gamification
To motivate agents further, some businesses choose to incentivize the upselling program so that every agent completing a successful sale can earn a commission quotient.
Just keep this within a logical threshold, preventing bad blood between teammates and an eagerness that drives away customers.
As such, gamification is perhaps a better strategy, creating an environment of healthy competition.
4. Approach Upselling as a Long-Term Objective
The first step to a long-lasting, successful upselling strategy is fostering trust. This means training agents to not jump the gun but focus on solving the customer’s problem before starting a sales-related conversation.
For instance, a service rep may plant the seeds of upselling during one conversation by saying: "In the future, our alternative option may help you to…".
Such a statement can turn into a sales opportunity later on.