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The importance of “Suggestive Selling”

By Bruno Azevedo, RM HUB's Consultant and Trainer

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In the previous article I mentioned that Revenue management in F&B is very strongly impacted by the need to attend to clients' emotional issues. Not wanting to go into the physiological issue, we should not forget that food involves the ingestion, digestion and elimination of liquid and solid substances, thus impacting our body. This activity influences health, mood, well-being and can ultimately influence human happiness.

In building a deeper knowledge about food, the Revenue Manager should be able to understand how it can help improve the concept so that it is included in consumer behavior. This knowledge should not come from the idea that we all eat and we all know how the act is done. In building a deeper knowledge about food, the Revenue Manager should be able to understand how it can help improve the concept so that it is included in consumer behavior. This knowledge should not come from the idea that we all eat and we all know how the act is done. We believe that we are conscious witnesses of our lives and that we decide our consumption actions based on personal and unique choices.

This belief is completely opposite to what scientists who study human behavior have long known. Consumers are manipulated by “suggestions” prior to purchase that in many cases would never correspond to their conscious consumption. In F&B management, we have known for a long time how to guide the customer towards consumption. The decoration of the spaces is transformed into comfort and the restaurant environment creates the right setting for consumption. However, to be successful, this suggestion must be subtle. The consumer must think that the choice was consciously his and not the result of previous conditioning. CAs I mentioned before, companies that fail to understand the chain of behaviors that a customer performs to buy their products will certainly have greater difficulties in subsisting. Understanding behavior is the first part of this management. The next will be to use that knowledge to grow the business and promote customer satisfaction.

A tool I use very often is called “Suggestive Selling” or “Upselling”. It is a sales technique in which the employee recommends the customer to include one more product in the purchase process or another product that better suits his/her profile. This technique focuses on the idea that the cost of suggesting is less than the cost of acquiring a new customer. The suggestion could be misinterpreted by the consumer when executed inefficiently. One of the limitations of this technique is that it is not uniformly performed by all employees. For example, the same suggestion phrase spoken by employee A may sound to the customer as an intrusion, while that said by employee B may sound like an additional improvement to the product he wants to purchase. In this way, training plays a fundamental role in the use of this technique.

One of the problems I usually encounter is the widespread perception in Portugal that waiters or bartenders are to be efficient and professionally attend to orders and not to be salespeople. In the past, whenever I asked which functions were essential for the success of a good waiter or bartender, the answers were always based on friendliness, smile and efficiency. They rarely imagine themselves as a fundamental part of the company's financial success. Being a salesperson for many is being someone who is aggressive or who likes to “force” things on customers.

Revenue Manager's view is that every lost sales opportunity is a lower level of efficiency. In this way, a huge importance is placed on this tool. Well managed, it can greatly help the company's financial results. For example, by suggesting additional products such as drinks, desserts, appetizers and side dishes, you immediately improve your spending per customer and your daily turnover. This improvement in this performance indicator can be measured daily or weekly and this information should be made available to the team so that everyone knows where they are.

We must not forget that numbers are the expression of daily actions in the bar or restaurant and as important as understanding the numbers is to understand the mechanism that originates them. In the next article I will mention some “Suggestive Selling” strategies that, although simple, can provide a great impact on the company.