The other day Hollie and I were on our way up to Perth and as usual the kids were in the back seat getting a little rowdy. So to keep them quiet we bribed them with a kids meal from Red Rooster.
Now I try not to frequent fast-food places very often, but when you’ve got kids in a car on a long trip… There’s not much else to bribe them with.
This particular instance of going through the drive-through, I ordered the kids their meals and ordered something for Hollie and I. Expecting them to come back with the total and ask me to drive forward (like they always do). So I was taken by surprise by what the little voice came back with next…
“Would you like to try 3 apple bites for just $1”
Now, why was it such a surprise to me that I was asked If I’d like something that I didn’t ask for?
Because it rarely happens in the big chain fast-food stores these days. I find it strange when you think that the “would you like fries with that?” concept was virtually made known by the fast-food industry.
It really is just cross-selling 101.
The customer comes in and buys product X, and you simply ask “Would you like to buy product Y for $” or if you want to be a bit more advanced you can educate them on why they would benefit from having product Y too.
Or even better, stack cross-selling on top of each other. A typical stacked cross-sell would be when you buy a video camera and then the sales-guy tell you why you need the fancy camera case to protect your camera, then he tells you how great your photos will look if you buy the tripod and finally you really must upgrade to the 32GB SD Card to make sure you never have to delete a photo…
The main reason that you want to cross-sell is that it increases the transaction value.
If we take the camera example, to make the math easy, let’s say that the camera is $500, and they bundle the case, tripod and SD Card for $200.
If every year, they sold 1000 Cameras, they are making $500,000 per year in camera sales.
Lets pretend that we instruct all the sales-people to say the following after someone purchases a camera “Did you know that we have this great camera essentials bundle pack that will allow you to protect your camera, take steady shots and make sure you never run out of memory on your camer!. It’s valued at over $300, but you can have it today for just $200”.
It costs ZERO dollars to implement this strategy but lets look at the results.
If 1/20 say yes they increase sales by $10,000
If 1/10 say yes they increase sales by $20,000
If 1/5 say yes they increase sales by $40,000
It’s possible that the results could be even better than that, but still $40,000 extra sales simply by asking a question 1000 times is pretty good in anyone’s book… I struggle to comprehend why the fast-food cross-sell is such a rare occurrence these days.
Just letting your customers know that you have additional products is the first step to cross-selling, and some great non-sales approaches to educating your clients about what you sell is with social media, ezines and of course our favourite – The monthly printed customer Newsletter!
So my challenge to you is with every customer simply ask “Would you like to buy Y too?”