Upsell opportunities, also known as upsell, is a sales tactics used by companies to sell a higher version of a product or service than a potential customer originally intended to buy. Upselling can increase revenue and allow customers to use a product or service with more features and functionality.
Here are the articles to explain, What are the upsell opportunities? How does it work? Basic Steps
Most businesses offer different tiers of a single product or service with features or functionality significantly higher than the standard version. Identifying a customer’s needs and launching a better version of a product or service is known as upselling, or identifying upselling opportunities.
For example, when a customer decides to buy a standard version of an office suite, but a salesperson thinks a premium version can better address their pain points, they will try to upsell the product. If a customer chooses the premium version instead of the standard version, it will provide them and the company with better value as the sale will generate more revenue.
While salespeople are responsible for identifying upsell opportunities in smaller companies, in larger businesses teams such as marketing or marketing operations are responsible for the same work.
Upsell opportunities exist for any business that offers a multi-level product or service sales strategy. These companies often use customer success software to learn more about customers, their satisfaction levels, how they use a product or service and determine if they need more from their current solutions.
Here are some examples of using upsell opportunities:
phone plan
software solution
hotel
streaming service
Computers and Mobile Devices
insurance plan
Basic Steps in Identifying Upsell Opportunities
Spotting upsell opportunities isn’t difficult. Sales and marketing teams encounter many situations every day. A few steps to easily identify upsell opportunities are as follows:
Journey-based: Monitoring customer journeys helps to understand their preferences, interests, behaviors, and what they hope to achieve with the product. Understanding these factors can help teams upsell solutions to customers.
Single View: Customers can interact with a product or service through multiple touchpoints. It can be difficult to keep track of all touchpoints daily. Tracking customer touchpoints is easier with a unified view of the customer.
Segmentation: Mining behavioral data to track customer information such as purchase history, app usage, product issues, etc. can help sales and marketing teams understand them better. In turn, this helps them better upsell solutions to customers.
How does upsell work?
Once a potential customer signs the dotted line and becomes a paying customer, they have access to the product or service. However, over time, they may require more functionality or features to be usable. Identifying this upsell opportunity is up to a salesperson (in smaller companies) or a dedicated team such as marketing or marketing operations (in larger companies), who can then show the customer what an extended version of the product looks like, how it works, and its benefits.
Application of Upsell Opportunities
Upsell opportunities should provide customers with a better value proposition. Companies often upsell with an attractive offer if the customer chooses it sooner rather than later. Waiting to buy an enhanced version of a product or service can be more expensive.
The following industries use upsells and upsell opportunities:
SaaS Solutions: The software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry uses upsell opportunities to sell higher versions of software plans. Most SaaS solutions have different tiers with higher plans that offer more user access, additional features, and even priority customer support.
Insurance: Insurance plans almost always have multiple options. Agencies identify and offer add-ons to ensure better coverage for their clients.
Streaming Services: Most streaming services have different plans. These plans offer additional benefits such as better resolution, allowing more users to watch simultaneously, and ad-free programming.
Computers and Mobile Devices: The basic versions of modern computers and mobile devices don’t offer a lot of extra value. Upgraded versions of these devices offer higher performance, greater storage capacity, or enhanced camera quality.
Hotels: Hotel managers aim to upsell guests upgraded rooms with more space and amenities for a better experience.
Advantages of Upselling
Identifying and implementing upsell opportunities has multiple advantages. Here are some of the most common advantages:
pay increment. Upselling helps increase revenue from existing customers rather than acquiring new ones.
Save the opportunity. Companies that offer multiple products or services can upsell them to customers who are already using a particular product. This gives them more opportunities to retain customers.
The best of both worlds. Upselling higher resolutions is good for salespeople as it helps them bring in more sales. On the other hand, customers can also benefit from upgrading to a better solution version.
Features of Upsell
Upselling involves a few features that help make it more effective. Here are some of them:
Promise: Upsells don’t stop when customers sign the dotted line. Companies need to make sure they deliver the promised value during an upsell.
Communication: Communication is the key to upselling. Salespeople must let customers understand the value and benefits that higher plans will bring.
Relationships: Building customer relationships and nurturing existing ones is a critical part of upselling efforts.
Trust: Customers need to trust a product or service before buying, especially when they are asked to spend more to upgrade an existing solution. Companies should allow free trials or money-back guarantees so customers can try out a product or service before purchasing. In most cases, customers are likely to convert when they build this trust.
Best Practices of Upsell opportunities
Upselling is a simple process that is easy to understand and implement. However, companies need to keep the following best practices in mind:
Relevance: A company should not launch a solution that does not provide value to customers. For example, if a customer wants to buy a motorcycle, it doesn’t make sense to sell them a car. Instead, dealers should analyze the variety of motorcycles available and upsell motorcycles with more features.
Value: Most customers won’t immediately agree to an upsell. Companies need to train them in the right way so that customers fully appreciate the value and benefits of upgrading their products.
Discounts: Companies can offer discounts to customers to upgrade their products or services. This provides more incentive for customers to purchase additional features and functionality at a lower price.
Needs: It’s important to research and understand a customer’s needs before upselling. For example, if a customer is currently using a standard version of a customer relationship management (CRM) solution, but requires more automation capabilities that are not available in the current plan, the responsible team needs to identify this and reach out proactively.
Relationship: Upselling is successful when mutual trust exists between the company and the customer. When salespeople come up with higher-value solutions, they can’t take a hard-line approach. Building relationships with customers is a great upsell technique. For example, if an existing SaaS customer requires a solution with higher functionality, the salesperson will be aware of this. Salespeople can then continue to slowly nurture customers and build strong relationships before upselling the next version of their product.
Difference between Upsell vs. Cross-sell
Upselling opportunities are often mistaken for cross-selling, which is a whole different concept. While upselling means that the company encourages existing customers to upgrade to the same product or service, cross-selling means that customers can buy an entirely different product or service at the time of purchase. For example, if a customer bought a smartphone, a salesperson might try to cross-sell cases or phone insurance.