5 Tactics to Increase Upsells

Upsells are targets staring every Customer Success team in the face.  

The role of upselling

Len Markidan of Groove suggests there are three distinct benefits to upselling customers:

1. Upselling builds deeper customer relationships.
2. Upselling to customers is easier than selling to new customers.
3. Upselling increases Customer Life Value (CLV)

How upselling builds deeper customer relationships

If you’re earnest and fair-minded, it’s just plain helpful to show a customer a new and better option. It’s the added feature or more useful function that makes the product whole.  And so, not bringing that extra to their attention might cost you some customer relationships.

Upselling to customers is easier than selling to new customers

Writing for Forbes, Larry Myler quoted the adage, “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other gold.” You all know the comparative cost of selling new prospects against selling current customers. But, Myler refers to a Bain & Company study showing, “60-80% of customers who describe themselves as satisfied do not go back to do more business with the company that initially satisfied them.” There’s a real problem in that disconnect.

Upselling increases Customer Life Value (CLV)

I believe it’s fairly self-explanatory. And more than that, if you know what your customers are worth to you in the future, you know how to budget acquisition and retention costs.

Here’s 5 Tactics to increase upsells:

1. Hone the frequency of your upsell attempts. You should balance not asking enough and asking too much. And, this differs from customer to customer.

The ability to determine that frequency comes with the confidence you get from time and practice. So, the advice would be to start slow and grow. In time, you’ll notice the clues that you’re pushing too hard too fast. The other side of the coin is not pushing at all when you know the client can benefit from the upgraded product or feature.  This will rob the client the opportunity to excel even more, and, therefore, weakens your relationship.

Remember: upselling means adding value for the customer.

You know that message at the bottom of an Amazon purchase telling you that other people who have made this purchase have also looked at. Yours is the same upsell opportunity. That is, your company has already made the sale by making them a customer, and so, you need only to suggest the choices that could be a great fit.

2. 2. Suggest a DIY. You can upsell if you suggest what the customer might do or have done to add the same feature.

For example: tell the customer about a feature that is only available in your expanded version of your product – a feature that can really help her department succeed. If she’s iffy about an upgrade, suggest that she’ll have her in-house development team work on such a feature to save the costs of an upgrade.  Not only she’ll appreciate the fact that you’re on her side, but in more instances than you can imagine, she will eventually realize that it’s much easier to do it through you than to deal with the bureaucracy and red-tape of her own organization. That same customer who asserted that s/he knew the price and wouldn’t spend a dime more will see the bargain you set up. Note that this requires the CSMs to know their product, its options, and the competitor’s products, features, and pricing. The confidence that comes with this knowledge makes everything easier.

Remember: it takes a good listener, too.

Your best customer relationship is a mutual experience. You must listen well enough to hear the resistance in the customer’s voice. As you’ll learn, there’s a bit of a game to it. Customers expect you to push as much as they will let you, and no more. It’s a ritual, and people learn ritual through practice.

3. 3. Build trust and rapport. Any customer needs to believe you have their best personal interest at heart.

You must work at initiating and sustaining relationships. In the example above, you genuinely wanted the customer to have the upgraded feature, whether it will be through you or not. You believed that such a feature would make her life easier and business stronger, and you suggested it, preparing yourself to the reality that she might actually get it somewhere else. But that’s ok because you have her best interest at heart.

• Rapport is a two-way street. The word “rapport” describes a mutual relationship, where CSMs and customers both bring something to the connection.

Remember. Few things build rapport like good listening.

• Mirror the customer. You move forward if you can match the customer’s style. You acknowledge and confirm the customer when you repeat their key phrases, summarize their points, and agree with their objectives. You don’t want to insult them by mimicking them, but with active listening skills, you can reflect the pacing of their speech, laugh at their jokes, or dismiss the small talk.

Remember: adjust yourself to match your customer.

• Trust makes upsells. Relationships take time to build. But, if you work at them, they become enduring and productive. But, from the customer’s point of view, the trust that sustains depends on your keeping your commitments. This requires you to form strong relationships with your support people. For example, you dare not promise a delivery date your Ops people cannot meet. Their job is to meet and exceed your expectations because Ops need customers as much as you.

Remember: building a good support team will enable you to create trust between you and your customer.

4. 4.   Have your client’s best interests at heart.

So what’s the difference between this section and the previous section? Well, there is a difference between working towards having your clients believe that you have their best interest at heart, and actually having their best interest at heart. You can go far by pretending to have their best interest at heart. But not very far. If you genuinely feel for your customer, if you can empathize enough to see things from the client’s perspective, it’s easier to bind relationships. This is where canned presentations fail. If all customers look the same to you, there’s no way you can stand in their shoes. You must drive this down to your support mechanism. You must work closely with internal departments so they’ll see the same differences you see, so they don’t treat everyone the same.

Remember: everyone has accountability for your success.

That’s actually the easier part. The harder part, if you weren’t born this way, is to empathize with your customers.  Learn how to do that and you’ll become the upsell king.

Remember: learning to empathize with your customers will be the best thing you can do for yourself and your organization

5. Find out where else the customer spends money. You should know if the customer spends on products and services that could be better off with you.

If you determine where the customer shops, you can determine if it is purchasing that you could satisfy better. The customer may not know you have the product or service. The customer may not know your features and benefits are better, more efficient, or more cost-effective.

• Know your market well. It’s your job to know the competition. In a world where everyone can comparative shop online, you risk losing customers to the competition. You must position yourself to show the difference you, your product, and your relationship make.
• Tell stories. Good relationships let you review testimonials and case studies. Any CSM should be able to make a better presentation than an online catalog.
• Work smarter. Working customers well takes creativity. You must study, prepare, and write different approaches on different products to different customer segments. It takes work, but it pays off.

Keeping the “professional” in Customer Success Manager – The tactics examined here assume that you are providing a good and high quality product.  The success of upselling depends on the CSM’s belief and trust that they have a superb product in their hands, a product that will most definitely make the customers’ lives easier and their business more successful. Seek out this information. Question what you’ve been told in order to be convinced that your product is superior. Because if the relevant stakeholders cannot provide you with the proof you need to be convinced of your product’s superiority, then they also can’t expect you to upsell something you don’t believe in. Make sure you are willing to buy and use your own products.   What tactics do YOU do use to upsell? Feel free to share ideas that worked for you in this matter. Interested in contributing to this blog? Write me at miron9000@gmail.com