Ever go to a clothing store and have the salesperson try and sell you a shirt to go with your jeans or even a belt maybe? Notice how popular fast food chains ask if you want to add a drink and fries to make it a combo? That’s called cross-selling. How supermarkets do it is by placing treats like chocolates and ice creams close to the billing counters.

It’s worth noting how upselling and cross-selling are small practices that reflect in higher sales. Cross-selling is a lot easier and effortless than upselling because all you need to do is suggest something that adds to their current order. Like a cold drink and fries with their burger or a coffee with their sandwich. Upselling is when you push a more expensive product for customers to buy. That’s why it can be tricky. But today, upselling or cross-selling, even a small item, boosts sales. And why shouldn’t that be applied to restaurants? If you are already doing it, great. But are you doing it right? Is the wait staff trying to sell something to your customer when they don’t need it? It’s worth revisiting this small yet significant exercise in the business.

Warm up to diners

A part of good customer service is the staff being polite to customers. That said, it’s always a good idea to keep the interaction conversational. That way, the diners would be comfortable taking the staff’s recommendations. From a warm hello to talking to them about the specials, there are many ways to make customers feel comfortable without overdoing it. More importantly, when you genuinely care, they’ll know and by extension will reflect in their experience at the restaurant.

Knowing the menu

If you’re going to train your wait staff in upselling and cross-selling, make sure they know the menu to the T. Knowing what to upsell and what to cross-sell is key to make that sale to the customer. If you’re going to upsell something they don’t need and cross-sell something that doesn’t add anything to the dish they ordered, makes the exercise pointless. An example would be, if they have ordered for cocktails with their meal and are suggested wine instead of similar yet slightly more expensive cocktail.

Not being chatty

If you want to steer clear from chatting up diners and still want to be able to upsell or cross-sell, all you need to do is to position such dishes and drinks in a way that the diners don’t miss it. Blackboard menus and tent cards can be great for such placements. Tent cards with pictures of a dessert or drink creates a visual impact on the customer making them lean towards ordering it. Even on the menu, position dishes to cross-sell strategically instead of right at the end, so customers instantly spot them and can quickly make a decision. If they can’t, the wait staff can always make appropriate suggestions.

Straightforward suggestions

Before leaving a diner’s table, ensure the wait staff makes a suggestion in line with the order. Instead of asking them if they want suggestions, which means you give them room to say no without hearing you out, just go straight ahead and make a suggestion. If it’s dinner and they haven’t ordered for drinks, suggest a good wine or cocktails instead of asking if they want something to drink or just handing them the bar menu. If you have a specials menu, have their server suggest dishes from there. Something as simple as “We have a roast chicken special today with butter sautéed seasonal fresh vegetables. You must try it, it’s pretty good.” nudges the diner to order it. Of course, the dish should indeed be very good to back up the claim.

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In short, knowing when to upsell and when to cross-sell and what items to do them with, will reflect in higher sales at the end of service. These are just a couple of ways to ensure your diner gets to try some of the finer dishes at your restaurant and in turn boost your sales.