How To Improve Sales With
Cross-Selling And Upselling?
Listening for the unspoken needs
By Erin Boettge
Achieving sales goals is always going to be ranked as a high prior-
ity for companies across industries. If your company offers multiple
products and/or services, then an important part of meeting those
sales goals involves cross-selling and upselling.
“The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5 to 20%. The
probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70%.”
– Marketing Metrics
If this is an area where your sales or customer service teams struggle,
then that presents a great opportunity to fill a gap and increase sales. In
fact, anyone who comes into contact with customers can have the
ability to cross-sell or upsell, if they’ve been trained on the options
available to meet customers’ needs.
Knowledge of Product and Service Offerings is for Everyone
People make small talk about where they work all the time. If a
software developer meets someone at a party and says they work for
X company, and that person is a current customer, they may say that
they love the product, but wish it had X feature. If your developer
has been trained on all the offerings of your company, they can rec-
ommend looking into an add-on that includes the feature their new
acquaintance (and your customer) is looking for.
Your sales and customer service teams are obviously going to be the
main generators of cross-selling and upselling revenue, but don’t neglect
to train your entire staff on the offerings of your company, along with
providing updates whenever big changes are made to those offerings.
For departments that aren’t in contact with customers on a regular
basis, this training doesn’t have to be as in-depth as it would be for
someone on the front lines of sales, but they should come away with
a strong grasp of the stand out features and how they’re related in
the pricing structure.
When it comes to your customer-facing teams, regular training on
the complete offerings of your company is a necessity to see valuable
cross-sells and upsells grow your revenue. If your products or services
are segmented into different departments, provide a central location
where representatives can find information on an offering they’re less
familiar with, along with the contact info for individual representatives
who can provide more insight. 
Make sure to communicate across departments on important
updates, and check how that affects cross-selling. Starting off a re-
lationship with a customer by offering something that is no longer
available is hardly a good way to build trust and loyalty with them.
When your representatives have a thorough understanding of how
all your products and services fill customers’ various needs, you’ll be
able to build your team’s confidence in offering them the best. Smart-
Money.com found that 15 percent of customers actually want to hear
about upsell offers, if done properly.
The phrase “if done properly” is important there. There are right
and wrong ways to cross-sell or upsell, so once your representatives
are trained on the company’s offerings, you’ll need to ensure they
understand how and when to take the conversation there.
HCM Sales, Marketing and Alliance Excellence Essentials presented by HR.com | 12.2017
Interactive
Listening for Unspoken Needs
In a conversation with a prospect or current customer, your rep-
resentatives will need to be constantly reading between the lines.
That’s why active listening is one of the most important skills in their
playbook. If they hear a magic word that sounds like an upsell op-
portunity and interrupt the person while they’re still talking, they’re
probably not listening for the full picture.
People can tell when someone isn’t really listening to them, and
when that happens, regardless of whether or not an upsell would help
them, that representative’s misstep in relational awareness makes the
human they’re talking to feel more like a dollar sign.
Your customers need to trust the company before they’ll reopen
their wallets, and knowing that they’re being heard is a crucial way
to build that trust.
Cross-selling and upselling only works when the customer can
see a connection between the problem they’re experiencing or the
gap they want filled and how another purchase will solve that – at a
reasonable price. Neglecting the customer’s budget is a quick way for
an additional sale to fall flat.
Timing is Key
Knowing when to offer an upgrade or another product or service
is another important aspect of a successful cross-sell or upsell. That
also means knowing when not to offer it at all! Trying to sell more
at the wrong moment can leave a bad taste in a customer’s mouth,
and potentially cause them to switch to a competitor.
If your customer service representatives are helping people solve
problems all day, make sure they’re focused on first solving those
problems. Offering an upgrade to someone who isn’t having a good
experience with your product already is not going to yield good results.
A well-received offer to upgrade or make another purchase with your
company happens when your representatives can make a recommenda-
tion to solve a need they’ve identified through listening to the customer.
If no such need can be identified, don’t press your representatives to
attempt selling additional products without having a basis for the offer –
this can easily backfire and cause you to lose customer loyalty. HCM SMA
As the Content Marketing Manager, Erin Boettge is responsible for all aspects
of content development at BizLibrary, including development of blogs, ebooks,
guides, infographics, webinars and more. She conducts research about learning
and development and HR topics to deliver the most relevant content to the
BizLibrary audience.
Connect Erin Boettge
Follow @ErinMBoettge
Great Customer Service
Skills That Every
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