English: A business ideally is continually seeking feedback from customers: are the products helpful? are their needs being met? Constructive criticism helps marketers adjust offerings to meet customer needs. Source of diagram: here (see public domain declaration at top). Questions: write me at my Wikipedia talk page (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When employed properly, upselling sales technique is likely to generate a lot of sales revenue for a small business. However, if executed poorly, it could lose such a business valuable customers. For that reason, as a small business owner, you should educate your sales teams on up selling best practices. Here are three such practices to get you started:
In-depth Product Information
Your sales team must have an in-depth knowledge of the products/services that you sell. This is particularly important because sometimes all it takes for a customer to upgrade to a slightly more expensive product is simply to know there is a better product/service available.
Information is Power
You are more likely to convince a customer to buy a more expensive item or an additional item if you fully know and understand the customer needs. As such, you need to get as much relevant information from the customer as possible and at the same time, have the ability to discern exactly what the customer really wants. For example, if a customer is shopping for a cellphone with a large storage capacity, it should be easy to convenience such a customer to purchase additional external memory. Of course, the additional purchase should be relatively cheap in comparison to the original purchase, typically about 75% cheaper.
Right Timing is Vital
Most customers like to believe that they were in charge of their purchase decisions. As such, sales reps must wait until a customer makes up his/her mind about purchasing a product before upselling the customer. However, the aim of upselling is not to extract as much money from a customer as possible, rather to enhance the original purchase.
Overall, small businesses can employ up selling technique to boost their sales revenues. However, it is important for owners of such businesses to understand the best practices in regards to this sales technique, including the ones discussed in this article.