Why I’m not down with upselling
A spectre is haunting late corporate capitalism – the spectre of upselling. If you’re not familiar with the term upselling (or suggestive selling), you’re definitely familiar with the practice. Let me set the scene:
INT. UBIQUITOUS CHAIN STORE – DAY
INNOCENT CUSTOMER approaches the checkout with an item to purchase. Pleasantries are exchanged with CASHIER.
CASHIER
Will that be all for you?
INNOCENT CUSTOMER
Yep, just this.
CASHIER
Do you have a Ubiquitous Chain Store Member Value Rewards Discount Bonus Card?
INNOCENT CUSTOMER
No.
CASHIER
It’ll save you 10 percent off today’s purchase!
INNOCENT CUSTOMER
I’m good. Just this, please.
CUSTOMER
Will you be needing batteries for that?
INNOCENT CUSTOMER
I have some, thanks.
CASHIER
How about our CoverCare Three-Year Extended Warranty? You never know!
INNOCENT CUSTOMER
Nope.
CASHIER
What about about the Weather Protectant Spray?
Innocent Customer bludgeons Cashier to death with the product and leaves the store.
**************
I’m sure you’ve had this experience (sans the gratuitous violence), and I’m sure you’re as annoyed as I am every time it happens. I’m also aware that economic logic means that the practice is here to stay. It’s not like there are a lot of big stores that don’t upsell where you can take your business. So, can we just make a case for intelligent use? Some ground rules:
1. Ditch the lame, lengthy scripts that you force employees to read when answering the phones or greeting people at the drive thru. Employees and customers hate this practice equally, since it’s fake and time-consuming. When I worked at Pizza Hut back in Nineteen Ninety [mumble], there was this unthinkably long spiel we had to say every time we answered the phone. Even way back then, the chain was throwing every possible idea, pizza-wise, against the wall and seeing what would stick. Our script involved pushing these gimmicky pizzas on every sucker that happened to try to arrange a delivery, and it took about ten seconds to say. Obviously, I got hung up on a lot, and occasionally cursed. Every obstacle you put in front of me trying to purchase something from you makes me not want to purchase something from you.
2. Sell me something remotely related to the product I’m buying, at least. Self-explanatory, you’d think.
3. Don’t dare upsell me on a tech support call. I called my cable provider’s tech support the other day, and after helping me, the rep tried to sell me on a land line – the idea being that they were more “secure” and “reliable” than cell phones. First of all, that’s downselling. I don’t get rickshaws pushed me on when I go car shopping. Secondly, I’m already pissed because I’ve had to wade through a dozen robo-prompts to find a human that can tell me why your product went kaput. It’s not the right time. If you were on a first date and spilled beer all over your date, would you immediately try to put the moves on them?
4. Don’t penalize your employees if they don’t do it. A financial carrot has to work better than a Secret Shopper stick here. There’s nothing worse than an aggressively unenthusiastic minimum-wage worker reading a prompt with all the pep of Ben Stein calling the class roll. If you’re going to make them do the same kind of hard sell that commission-based salesman do, at least throw them a bone in the form of a bonus if they reach a target. Merely doing something to avoid a professional narc from getting you fired isn’t going to inspire anything but the most perfunctory efforts.
5. Make sure the extra thing you’re selling me isn’t a rip-off. Obviously, the biggest offender is the extended warranty, but I’m equally annoyed by membership cards with dubious benefits. A popular book chain – let’s call it Smarnes and Noble – requires that you spend $250 a year to break even on their card. Lame. Corporate-speak is full of talk about “value-added”, but that’s rarely the case.
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Spot on piece and great ideas. As a sophomore in high school in 1990 i took a job at a pizza joint too and there i first dumbfoundedly encountered the concept of the suggestive sell. All of us non-managerial workers at store #118 were utterly repulsed by the laminated scripts on the phone counter directing us to repeat the carefully crafted brand marketing (which to any rational person sounded totally lame.)
We maintained our sanity, as humans do, through humor; coming up with our own satirized versions of the conventional corporate speak. eg – “F@#k You for calling Little Sleazers! Would you like to try our 3 toe-cheese large pan pizza for only 5.99?” (yeah we never actually answered the phones that way – but we could dream)
Does Little Caesars have anything *not* on special? I understand they need some gimmick to unload those awful square inedibles, but it’s comical how it’s always perma-promotion time there.
Aw come on Joseph, you’ve worked for the networks… you must know how ad-people use sensory overload, bait-and-switch and a whole host of psychological assaults to trick the krill-like consumers into their clients’ whale-like maws.
On more than one occasion i redeemed coupons for customers with a chortle, knowing full well i would get in trouble if i actually let the poor soul in on the fact that if you added up the items in the promotion off the regular menu, the total cost would be less than that of the coupon they thought was the ‘deal’.
As i would learn decades later from the Megan McArdles of the world, they aren’t dishonest/deceptive; rather, they’re just really smart saavy business people.
In response to another comment. See in context »I just started working at a popular movie theater chain and had to sit through three hours of a supervisor explaining what “being friendly to your guest” means unenthusiastically from a notebook bender.
The point though one of the things they made us sign was a document saying that we promised to up sell. Now it wasn’t called “upselling” and it wasn’t presented as a legal “document”. Which is was because of some legal jargon at the bottom in small print. But, they were pushing it more as motivational tool. My supervisor after we read the document: “Now guys don’t you think this is something you can do? And if you do and we want you to sign your name saying you can!” Not, “Hey guys you see this piece of non-threatening paper with fun exclamation points and goofy fonts? Well we consciously tried to make it not look like a legal bidding contract, but it is. So, we want you to sign it and when we catch you not upselling we will show you this document again when we fire you.”
I already hate my job.
Sorry for the grammatical errors. I was mad.
In response to another comment. See in context »