23 July 2008

Suggestive selling backfires at Braddon Mobil

| johnboy
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Heading in to pay for my petrol today I saw this sign and wondered “will they ask?”.

The guy behind the counter asked for the now usual extortionate amount to fill the tank of my 1.6l engined car.

And then, resignedly, he mumbled:

“Would you like to get a car wash?”

“Um… No thanks…”

“I have to say that,” he said, “it’s because of the sign,”

“Oh…”

“Except my regulars, they asked me to stop doing it.”

“Is it working?”

“No… we’re selling less than we used to.”

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johnboy said :

Actually we’ve all been confusing out terms here.

This is a suggestive sell, as is “would you like fries with that”.

An up-sell is “for just 30c more I can give you twice as much”.

Both are very effective sales tools when used selectively by appropriately motivated staff.

Less so when applied en-block.

yes, but the sales communities all refer to addon sales as upselling. it is a lot easier to say and if you are pinged by the customer, not as abrasive.

solution sales are now having a resurgence, but you need to be a good sales person to manage that in a petrol outlet. telling a customer that he stinks, his car is dirty and he should eat, as well as buy fuel won’t go down well, especially if you were trying for air fresheners, a car wash and a meat pie.

some industries are only service orientated, upsell or solution selling just won’t work.

Actually we’ve all been confusing out terms here.

This is a suggestive sell, as is “would you like fries with that”.

An up-sell is “for just 30c more I can give you twice as much”.

Both are very effective sales tools when used selectively by appropriately motivated staff.

Less so when applied en-block.

do you get fries with it?

always wondered if ‘up selling’ (even the name is horrible) actually did any good. here’s the answer then..

Very annoying.

“Want a free wash?”

“What?”

“A free wash – I have to ask”

Meanwhile the queues getting longer and will soon be out the door…

Our local Mobil is doing this too. The other day the Carwash was out of order, in pieces with a bloke working on it and they were still asking.

Onselling doesn’t worry me. If I don’t want the offer I don’t accept. Sometimes I do.

Agreed, at its best a good upsell is suggesting to the customer something they haven’t realised they wanted yet.

Looking out onto the concourse and only suggesting to those with dirty cars would work better.

And giving the sales staff a commission of car washes over the average would make them happier about it too.

There’s a way to upsell, then there’s just forcing your employees to be annoyed. Having worked in sales management/customer service/retail/blah (although for a specific industry)… you can upsell without being blunt. Petrol and fast food isn’t really the place.

Felix the Cat9:15 pm 22 Jul 08

Ant – The car wash at Mitchell doesn’t have the revolving brushes that tear your roof off, don’t think the one at Gungahlin TC does either. If you still don’t trust it there is the DIY option (at the car wash) but it can end up costing more than the drive through wash.

Yuck, American rubbish. Even the sign looks American to me. At least the checkout bloke was honest, the poor bugger. I hate this stuff.

I can’t have car washes anyway. Soft top car, the machines would tear it off. Got a car wash the other night. It rained.

thanks for the warning JB! i might not have noticed that sign. now i *know* not to go there. upselling is awful – i had to do it when i worked at blockbuster video during my uni days, and if my manager wasn’t standing within earshot, i didn’t do it. it just irritates people!

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