Upselling - aaaagh!

I guess this is all about extremes. From a business point of view it makes great sense. In the old days this was common when someone bought cigarettes. They were always asked if they wanted "matches" too. Such a cheap item but I bet the sellers increased their profits nicely on the back of a book or box of matches.

It's only common sense to make sure that your client is aware of all that you can do for them. The big difference should be in how it's done. Do you shove it in the client's face, or do you find a nice easy going way to let them know that you have more to offer as and when they need it.

Oppressive versus Genuine client care.

Sorry you had a bad experience. Hope it doesn't put you off too much.

I think the first bit of what irks me is whether there's already a transaction happening. If I order a burger and the server asks me if I'd like fries with that... well, I've already got my purse out and I'm ready to hand over some money. Whereas if I've just phoned to update the contact details on my account, it's not very cricket to suddenly steer the conversation round to an unplanned purchase.

The second part is about time and mental energy. If I've gone to get my lunch and I'm expecting it to take, say, ten minutes of my time and give me a mental break, that won't be drastically changed by the fact that they offer me fries as well as my burger. I won't find myself perplexed as I try to mentally calculate the benefits of fries. Even if I decide I would like the fries, it won't take any extra time out of my day. Whereas these guys want to spend ten minutes explaining the product while I try to retain as much of the unexpected and hastily jabbered information overload as possible. Brain ache! Don't need it!

The third part is that if I say to the burger-joint employee "no thank you, no fries today" he won't get in my face about it and start demanding the details of my finances/marketing plan/living arrangements/dietary requirements or asking me whether I really think I'll survive without fries.

I am over-thinking this.

I agree with all you have said, I am going to reply to this, but will be a long post, which means you need to sit down with a cup of tea, coffee or your chosen drink. But will type it up in the next day or so and copy an paste it in.

sean

** Draws breath **

Ok - firstly having worked at said burger joint for a while - you are trained to upsell - id like a cheesburger and fries - would that be large fries? - you will be amazed at how many people cannot say no even if they dont want it, not saying im a fan of this but your job depended on you asking those questions.

Im in the middle of selling my house, rang my mortgage company, usual security questions - then in the middle of this do you have your insurance with us?- No i replied thinking it was another security Q, would you like a quote at the end of our conversation? Well i replied i know you are reading a script but i thought i said at the start of the conv that i wanted some info re settling the mortgage so what would i want insurance for? Hmm not very bright. But then they carried on with the security questions, thats not on surely?

I think we are in the middle of a society that is desperately trying to pull itself out of a recession and people are looking at ways of making extra

Like I said it's all abpout the extreme way we treat clients. You may have the best service in the world or the best product, but if you alienate people your business is dead in the water.

I agree whole heartedly that people are exploited way too much. I hate it when you relax for thre evening and sure enough you get that unsolicited call from a different planet with a hard to under stand speech about some miracle financial benefit. They word it so cvarefully that if you say you are not interested you are confessing to be a morron (how do you spell that?). I tend to launch into a long statement about how to sell to clients without upsetting them and suggest that they need retraining (just before the phone goes down).

It's the sam in all shops. You ahve the assistant who appreciates the sanctity and independemnce of the shopper and leaves them the freedom to take their own decisions. Then you have the clone who goes by the company generated text that is guaranteed to increase sales.

When will businesses come back a few generations and rediscover that the client is the most important factor in their business. If they stop pressing us to buy the workd before the end of the conversation, and start building a friendly relationship with us, we will become loyal to them because we like the way they treat us.

People are important. Services and products are secondary.

Anyone want to buy a tamper proof tax disc holder?

Oooops! Sorry! I fell to temptation. At least I waited to the end of the post so that can't be too bad. Hee! Hee!

You're right Clive, I have a thing about being rude to people and I need to remember that (1) even at my snarkiest I won't be the worst a---hole they've dealt with that day, and (2) even if I was they're expecting it and are paid to deal with it.

I try and do the assertiveness stuff - just repeating and repeating "I said I am not interested and I do not want to continue this conversation" - usually that works just fine but this time it ended up evolving to "which part of this do you not understand?!?" which as you know is pretty unusual for someone like me!


Pfft!

1 - they have prob been on the fone to me before you then lol
2 - yep they are being paid to take up your vaulable time

Have to admit i dont suffer fools gladly, if i dont like the way im being spoken to as a customer i will bite & bite bl***y hard - i dont want to ruin anyones day but i will not suffer bad customer service quietly - i make no apologies about it.

Biggest bug bear now that im on the TPS register is surveys which strangely enough arent on TPS radar - somehow this then turns into a sales call - a sneaky way of getting around TPS.

When im asked now to partake in a survey, rather than a flat no which takes forever to get through their thick skin, my favorite line now is my fee is

I like it Clive. I think you have the ultimate answer.

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