{"id":52,"date":"2017-10-05T11:45:36","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T15:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/?p=52"},"modified":"2017-10-04T11:43:25","modified_gmt":"2017-10-04T15:43:25","slug":"upsells-your-secret-weapon-for-higher-profits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/?p=52","title":{"rendered":"Upsells &#8211; Your Secret Weapon for Higher Profits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have shopped at the same grocery store chain since I was able to use a microwave.\u00a0 They have always had a good fresh seafood department.\u00a0 Last week, for the first time, someone tried to upsell me at the seafood counter: I ordered my pound of shrimp, and after weighing and packaging the shrimp, Matt, the <strong><em>new<\/em><\/strong> seafood manager, asked me if I needed cocktail or scampi sauce.\u00a0 The man ahead of me had been asked if he wanted to try one of their new butters for the salmon he was buying.\u00a0 I upsell myself enough at the grocery store, but for the first time, this manager proactively <strong><em>upsold me<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 I imagine the sales of sauces and butters have increased since Matt took over the seafood department.<\/p>\n<p>So what does that story have to do with you?\u00a0 Well if Matt can upsell cocktail sauce and a $7.50 an hour cashier at McDonalds can upsell French fries, then why can\u2019t we do a better job of upselling at our Dealerships?\u00a0 I\u2019m not talking about selling Customers unnecessary work; I\u2019m talking about items that go hand-in-hand with each other, just like the shrimp and cocktail sauce!<br \/>\nIn <strong>the Service Department,<\/strong> for example:<\/p>\n<p>Request: New Tires: \u00a0<strong>Add-On Repair: <\/strong>nitrogen, wheel alignment, and road hazard insurance.<\/p>\n<p>Request: Engine Misses \u00a0<strong>Add-On Repair: <\/strong>Besides the Correction, Replace spark plugs, change fuel contaminated oil &amp; filter, possible air filter, PCV valve<\/p>\n<p>Request: A\/C Hose \u00a0 <strong>Add-On Repair: <\/strong>Other A\/C Hose if they are same age, Evacuate &amp; Recharge<\/p>\n<p>Request: Honda timing belt\u00a0\u00a0 <strong>Add-On Repair: <\/strong>Replace the water pump, radiator &amp; heater hoses, coolant.<\/p>\n<p>Lloyd Schiller of Lloyd Schiller.com says, <em>\u201cI see this all the time, a Customer comes in for a needed repair and we do <strong>that<\/strong> repair.\u00a0 These are more than upsell opportunities; this is taking proper care of the Customer\u2019s vehicles.\u00a0 For example, if an original hose breaks, then the other hose or hoses will fail soon. Why put your Customer at an inconvenience PLUS charge them again for lost coolant or lost refrigerant because &#8220;we were afraid we&#8217;ll chase them off.&#8221;\u00a0 If you&#8217;re inside my heart doing an angioplasty, PLEASE check ALL my arteries and vessels and give me ALL the stents I need (also a real-life lesson)! By training which repairs should be paired with corresponding work or what work will save the Customer money as long as the other work is being done, not only do you increase your sales, you provide a better level of service.\u00a0 We train these repair combinations during our Service Advisor training classes and see the Total Sales per Repair Order increase.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Take a few minutes and ask your Service Advisors what they should do when a Customer requests any of the above services.\u00a0 I hope the answer is, \u201cI\u2019d recommend\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Upselling is not limited to the Service Department.\u00a0 When <strong>the Parts Department\u2019s<\/strong> phone rings it is opportunity calling.\u00a0 The call is not an annoyance that must be dealt with, it\u2019s a prospective Customer.\u00a0 Answer the phone promptly and with a smile.\u00a0 This simple courtesy will make it easier to close the sale and to upsell the caller.\u00a0 The following is an excerpt on phone upselling from The <em>Ultimate Marketing Plan <\/em>by Dan Kennedy.<\/p>\n<p>Dan\u2019s example is from a Parts store where the Owner is spending a lot of money on advertising, but the sales are not increasing:<\/p>\n<p>Well, Customers were calling, but after the caller stated his business, the answer went like this: <em>\u201cLemme look it up&#8211;hold on . . .still there?\u00a0 It\u2019s $62.50.\u201d<\/em> Click.\u00a0 Does this sound familiar?\u00a0 The Parts Store owner had spent a lot of money advertising, but he had failed to train his people to handle the calls.\u00a0 What they did to fix this was the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Devised a phone script to <u>capture the caller\u2019s name, address, and phone number<\/u>.<br \/>\n(This information was used to market to the callers)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>They taught the script to all Employees.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>They instituted a reward pool of fifty cents per captured name, address and phone number, divided at day\u2019s end by everybody working that day.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>They added a \u201ctelephone upsell\u201d to the script as follows.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After taking the Customer\u2019s phone order or answering the Customer\u2019s questions, the Employees finish with:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0\u201cOh, just one more thing \u2013 we have an extra special offer just for today\u2019s callers \u2013 would you like to hear about it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>More than 70 percent of the callers said, <em>\u201cYes.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cGood.\u00a0 Any caller who comes in today or by noon tomorrow will receive a 10% discount coupon for any purchase in the store and a free copy of our 400-page catalog.\u00a0 Also, there\u2019s a sale right now on (insert product).\u00a0 I can set your coupon and catalog aside with your name if you are coming in.\u00a0 Should I do that?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>More than 50% said yes.\u00a0 More than 25 percent actually showed up.\u00a0 More than 15% not only came in but also bought the item they originally called to ask about and bought the sale item described on the phone.<\/p>\n<p>Spend a little time fine-tuning a script for your Parts Department to gather the caller\u2019s contact information and to close the sale upon the initial phone call.\u00a0 Don\u2019t let those opportunities go unanswered.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Body Shop<\/strong> has opportunities, too.\u00a0 It can get discouraging trying to upsell Customers who want you to cover their deductibles, but there are Customers who are \u201cnot guilty\u201d of the accident and have no deductible.\u00a0 My mother recently visited a body shop due to a minor accident.\u00a0 <strong>After<\/strong> the repair was done, she told me about the accident and how nice they were at the Body Shop.\u00a0 When I inquired if she also had<strong> <em><u>the missing passenger mirror<\/u> <\/em><\/strong>replaced, she said: <strong><em>\u201cI didn\u2019t think of it and no one mentioned it.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Missed opportunity!\u00a0 She still is driving around with a <em>warped plastic mirror<\/em> instead of a glass one &#8212; a plastic mirror was her fix so she wouldn\u2019t have to go to a Body Shop (for those with friends or family in Bonita Springs, Florida, you might want to warn them about a <em>burgundy Mercury Sable<\/em>).\u00a0 To maximize your Body Shop opportunities, while writing an estimate, do a vehicle walk around.\u00a0 Increase sales by offering to write an estimate <strong>for work not associated<\/strong> with the insurance claim, it is bound to be cheaper if it is done while the vehicle is already at your Dealership.\u00a0 When I had my vehicle at a Body Shop for a repair I wasn\u2019t responsible for, the Estimator never even went to my car; he just took the insurance company\u2019s estimate &#8212; he could have found a few \u201cdefects\u201d to upsell me on <strong><em>had he bothered<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 For Customers who have their vehicles serviced at your Dealership, check the service history; you could save the Customer time by having their needed maintenance done while the vehicle is in your shop.\u00a0 Don\u2019t miss the opportunity to help the Customer and the Service Department.<\/p>\n<p>For the Sales Department, accessories are your big opportunity to upsell to the Customer, but that is a whole other article.\u00a0 Make this month the time when you look at Service, Parts and Body Shop and see how <strong><em>legitimate<\/em><\/strong> upsells are your secret weapon to Happier Customers and to higher Net Profits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have shopped at the same grocery store chain since I was able to use a microwave.\u00a0 They have always had a good fresh seafood department.\u00a0 Last week, for the first time, someone tried to upsell me at the seafood counter: I ordered my pound of shrimp, and after weighing and packaging the shrimp, Matt, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9,7,6],"tags":[14,24],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dealership-best-practices","category-dealership-body-shop","category-dealership-parts-department","category-dealership-service-department","tag-best-practices","tag-upsell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53,"href":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profits4dealers.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}