Sales and Marketing/Activities/Upselling

Waffle House pamphlet

Image courtesy of Nate Steiner

Objectives

To understand the process of enhancing a sale - Upselling

Activity

Upselling is offering a buyer the opportunity to purchase a higher, more expensive level of product than the buyer had in mind. eg. At a car rental location, a service agent suggests a convertable instead of an intermediate-size car.

Task

Provide three travel and tourism examples of upselling - bearing in mind the tips below.

There are 7 tips to upselling:

1. Understand your customer's price expectations - obtain a realistic idea of what the buyer's budget range is

2. Aim high - the top figure your client gives may, intentionally, be a bit low.

3. Stress value - as you go up the quality ladder, benefits sometimes increase even more quickly - remind the customer of all they will get from the better purchase.

4. Sellout of their wallet, not yours - travel and tourism professionals often assume that the public will spend about the same as they would.

5. Be alert for special occassions - people celebrating a special occasion often want to be upsold.

6. Tell them they deserve a special trip - some people are reluctant to spend extra discretionary dollars to make their vacation better even if they have the money to do so.

7. Move them from the left brain to the right - when customers buy travel they are usually in a left brain, "I don't want to pay anything more than this" frame of mind. Move them over to the right side where they are wanting to stay in an ocean-view suite at a super-deluxe resort.

Support resources

• A larger version of the pamphlet pictured above - [1] go to site then right click and convert to a PDF to read

• A comic look at upselling the McDonalds way - [2]

• 7 Tips for upselling - Mancini, Marc (2003), Connecting with Customers - How to Sell, Service, and Market the Travel Product. Pearson Education Inc. New Jersey.