19.1 Introduction
Restaurant managers cannot expect customers to come in and just buy food. You use marketing efforts to draw customers in. You use similar efforts to encourage them to buy different or more expensive products. This strategy does not end at the door. It must continue at the table if you want to effectively drive sales and profits.
The strategies that you use to drive sales to customers that you already have are called upselling strategies. There are many different types of upselling strategies that you can use in restaurants. Each works best in a specific scenario or a set place and time. Not all strategies work for everyone, but you can improve your chances of success by training your staff in these strategies and creating a
solid plan for using them.
19.2 Train Servers to Upsell
Before you begin learning about different strategies, it is necessary to stress the importance of creating a training strategy for your employees. The best way to create a great upselling strategy is to have wait staff who are knowledgeable about your menu. You should schedule times for wait staff to test the menu items and to learn about the different ingredients in each dish as well as the way that the dishes are prepared. You should also train servers to understand which dishes are best paired together.
The more confidently the servers can talk about the food and make recommendations, the more successful the upselling strategies will be. This is because upselling is not about presenting a sales pitch. It requires discretion and perception that are best complemented by thorough knowledge of the menu. To best train servers, ensure that you go through role playing exercises with them. Let them practice
the best way to ask the customers questions or to upsell more expensive items. This practice will help them be able to use the strategies more confidently with customers.
When you can successfully train your staff on methods of upselling and your menu, you can avoid annoying the customer and instead make them feel like they are receiving a personal recommendation.
Rewards
Some restaurants offer rewards to servers who boost sales through upselling strategies. Offering free meals or cash bonuses is a good way to motivate servers to really use upselling strategies in their daily work rather than putting them on the backburner. However, this should always be done carefully to avoid enticing wait staff to push too hard for a sale. Upselling strategies should be used to enhance a customer's experience and not bother them by forcing them into purchasing items they do not want.
19.3 Start Early
The best upselling strategy begins early. It should start as soon as the server approaches the table for the first time. Depending on your
restaurant, you can offer free tastes of food or wines to open up the conversation and provide something small that seems free.
Remember to be clear about the prices of these initial offers. If the wine or the bread is free, be sure to say that it is free. However, if you charge for these items, make sure that it is clear to the customer that they will appear on the bill. It is not imperative to give the price, just avoid suggesting paid items alongside complementary items for clarity.
You should also begin the experience by asking the table what starter or appetizer they would like. Making a few suggestions about first courses is a good way to drive appetizer sales because too often, customers will omit looking at the first course and instead dive straight into the mains. By making suggestions, you are enticing them to take an extra look at a neglected area of the menu.
19.4 Know Your Customers
It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to get to know your customers, especially repeat or loyal customers. When servers get to know their customers, they make the customer feel valued. This is essential because repeat customers are incredibly valuable to a business. Getting to know your customers also makes it much easier to upsell because when servers know the customers' tastes, they can make suggestions to the customer they know will interest them.
When you hire new servers, be sure to point out repeat and valuable customers to them. Even when the sever is new or in training, it is important that they are introduced to regular customers. Then, they can make sure that the same level of service is maintained and help keep the customer happy.
19.5 Take Social Cues
As mentioned, the goal of upselling cannot be stressed enough. Servers should be able to take social cues to prevent inadvertently upsetting or annoying customers. If you have a host, you can use the host to help gauge the mood or type of customer, depending on the size of the group. Some parties will make it very clear that they have come in for a simple dining experience and want to sit down, eat their food and leave again. Trying to sell to them is not worth driving them away because they were not going to buy anyway.
Servers can also take social cues by asking some basic questions that are geared more towards the dining experience than towards sales. For example, the servers can ask the table about whether they know about the specials for the day. If the customers want to hear more, this is a good cue that you can upsell the customer. If the customer brushes the server off, this is a cue that customers are
uninterested in additional products.
19.6 The Power of Suggestion
Suggestions are a great way to upsell, and it has the benefit of being a basic strategy that anyone can learn. A suggestion is something that is useful to the customers and employees can combine their knowledge of the menu with the social cues from the customers to act like consultants.
The power of suggestion is great because it helps encourages customers to make a decision regarding their experience. For example, if customers are sitting at a table and are not ready to leave, the server can suggest that they order a dessert or a coffee to tide them over while they chat.
19.7 Make Assumptions
Assumptions are ideas that we presume to be true before taking decisions. Assumptions are also made in businesses for developing a strategy, planning and making decisions. These conjectures are generally standardized as disclosure of uncertainty and risk.
19.8 Offer Expensive Items
When a customer looks at your menu, most of them will not be looking for the most expensive item on the menu. In fact, they may stay away from it and discriminate based on price. Restaurants can combat this by encouraging servers to verbally offer these expensive items to customers. For example, when a customer orders a martini, a server asks them whether they would like Belvedere vodka or Smirnoff vodka in the martini. When this is expressed verbally, customers have to affirm whether they would take a cheaper price in favour of a better martini. When a server offers Belvedere to them, they are more likely to choose the better vodka.
19.9 Make Specific Offers
The offers that servers make to customers should always be specific. You should avoid making suggestions that are generic or are not informative. For example, a server should avoid recommending the restaurant's pizza. Instead, they should recommend the restaurant's brie and grape pizza.
Pizza on its own is uninteresting and customers can get pizza almost anywhere. By offering a specific pizza or a specific quality about the pizza, the server sets the restaurant's pizza apart and drives up the experience factor. This will not only encourage the customers to consider pizza but it will feel more like a helpful suggestion than a sales pitch.
19.10 Downselling
Downselling may sound counterintuitive, but it is a useful skill to have, especially in times of economic difficulties. To use a downselling strategy, a waiter starts by offering the most expensive item first before offering a mid-range item. This works because the customer may be tempted by the expensive item but the price shock will put them off committing to the item.
When the server offers the mid-range item second, they remain in control of the selling situation and instead encourage the customer to choose a more affordable option. Remaining in control of the sale is one of the most important parts of any sales strategy. It prevents the customer from reaching for the bottom, with a glass of tap water. Instead, the mid-range item feels more affordable and still allows them to indulge in the offer.
19.11 Cross-selling
Cross-selling is a strategy that you use to sell other relevant items alongside the item that has been purchased. To use cross-selling successfully, the staff must know which items go best together on the menu. They need to know which wine goes with which dish, which sauce goes with which dish and even what desserts go best with each dish. When servers can suggest the right pairs without hesitancy, the process works well.
Cross-selling also needs to be relevant to what the customer has already ordered. It is not a matter of encouraging them to order a bottle instead of a glass. Cross-selling should be within the limits of the initial purchase in order to keep their interest.
Cross-selling should also be reasonable. If the customer is ordering the cheapest thing on the menu and a glass of tap water, they will probably not want a dessert that costs as much as their main, even if it does complement the dish. The suggested purchase should not cost more than the original item. In fact, some say that the suggested purchase should not cost more than 25% of the original item but this figure is discretionary and should instead be based on your needs as an individual restaurant.
19.12 Discount Upselling
If you have a food product that has been over-ordered or is about to expire, you can use the discount upselling technique. This is similar to offering a sale in a retail store. You can feature it for a discounted price by calling it a house offer and suggesting it to all of your customers. This kind of upselling can be offered to most customers because as it is discounted, it will appeal to more customers. This kind of upselling tool is not necessarily designed to drive profits but it does help you move product in a restaurant rather than letting it go to waste. Since your goal for your food products is 100% utilisation, this is a good way to make this happen while still make a small profit on it.
19.13 Using Your Menu
You can use more than just your servers to encourage upselling in your restaurant. Casually offering pairings within your menu is a good place to start this. For example, if your restaurant has an extensive list of wines or beers, you can begin the upselling process in the menu by suggesting the best pairing for certain dishes. You can do this in the food menu or in the drinks menu or even in both menus if you prefer.
The menu on its own is not enough to encourage sales. The menu suggestions should also be encouraged by servers using other upselling techniques. The menu is merely a primer available for curious customers which serves as a primer for a future upsell.
19.14 Package Upselling
Depending on your restaurant, you might consider the package upselling technique. This is another way to use your menu to help you upsell. The basic premise involves offering a set menu alongside your a la carte menu. The value of the set menu is that you are shifting more products at a somewhat discounted price.
However, you can manipulate the menu to ensure that high-profit margin items are combined with
low-profit margin items to make sure that it evens out. For example, you might offer a soup or a salad as a starter because they have high-profit margins. You can then complement it with an expensive meat item because this offers value to the customer but does not diminish your profits. You can also include basic desserts for the third course which also have high-profit margins. This menu works well for two and three course menus but can be adapted to included several more courses.
These menus are also useful because by offering a limited number of dishes, you can drive down labour and production costs. You can offer these menus for lunch and for dinner. They are a great way to drive traffic into your restaurant at off-peak times, as well.
Finally, the value of the set menu translates over into other types of upselling. When a customer commits to a three course dinner, they are more likely to purchase drinks like alcohol or coffee. This is partly because they are getting a good deal and are happier to spend more but it is also because they know they will be spending more time at the table.
Module Summary
The upsell is not all about profit. If you want it to work successfully, it also needs to be about the customer, too. The more personalised an upsell is for a customer, the more likely they are to buy and keep buying when they return.
The key to any and all types of upsell is knowledge. The more knowledgeable your employees are about your dishes, the more gracefully they will be able to make suggestions to their customers about the right products.
Any of the above methods of upselling can be used in almost any business. They can be used at varying times but they should not all be used at once. Remember, you are already selling customers a product when they walk into your restaurant, if you try to sell them too much at once, they may not come back.
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