Cross-sell & Upsell Opportunities to Maximize Customer LTV
Great salespeople recognize that successful selling starts with helping your customer get what they want.
As sales trainer Jeffrey Gitomer says,
Great salespeople are relationship builders who provide value and help their customers win.
― Jeffrey Gitomer
When your customer gets what they want, you look like a star, and they tend to renew their contracts.
If your B2B sales strategy doesn’t include cross-selling and upselling, you’re likely leaving thousands of dollars on the table. Even worse, your customers’ growth might be stunted by being underserved. When implemented properly, these sales strategies can be used to ensure you are not underserving your customers and they stay informed on what’s possible working with your company.
As a Managed Service Provider, you offer a wide range of services catering to different business sizes or needs. This can make it tough to price the right offer or educate on complementary services. Yet, the more you know about your customers, the easier it is. Additionally, you can include a call-to-action within your quote that allows them to choose bundles or optional items to choose what they need.
Upselling and cross-selling are key to your successful B2B sales strategy
Helping your customers win is the essence of upselling and cross-selling. Let’s define the two sales techniques and how you can use them to grow your revenue while helping your customer get what they want.
Upsell: An improvement on an existing product or service to improve the experience.
Cross-sell: Including complimentary products or services to improve the experience.
What is cross-selling?
When you think of Amazon’s “people who bought x also bought y” recommendation engine, then you’re familiar with cross-selling. Yet, if you’re like many B2B salespeople, you may not have easy access to what your customers bought before to make it easy to recommend related products or services.
You know your clients prefer to bundle all their IT functions together when they outsource, including staff technical support. It simplifies things on their end. Inviting your customers to try new complementary or related services based on past purchases makes sense. With a cloud-based quote tool, you can review your customer list to see what services they’ve bought and make recommendations to enhance their service.
Cross-selling is a great tactic for informing your current customers about other ways your business can better serve them. As your business relationship grows, there are often opportunities to bundle or introduce other services to improve your service quality.
What is upselling?
You’ve probably experienced the upsell of “Would you like to upsize your drink for fifty cents?” Typical of fast-food restaurants, it’s an easy way to offer the customer more value at a small price.
Yes, B2B sales are more sophisticated than ordering a combo #1, but that doesn’t mean upselling doesn’t work. Imagine your company sells IT infrastructure management, and you offer your potential customers an upgrade that includes staff technical support for 20% more. Now they can outsource the infrastructure and expert technical support under one umbrella saving them time and money.
When to use these sales tactics
Like any B2B sales strategy, timing is everything. If your client just signed with someone else for the portion you want to add or if it’s significantly more expensive, then it may not work.
The key is to keep it relevant.
For example, what if you built a quote that offered the relevant options at the right time for your future customer? If you could review your customer contracts and upcoming service renewals, you can make suitable suggestions. It could make sense to team up with marketing or finance to find out additional customer insights.
If you come to your customer with timely suggestions to help them succeed, it shows you’re taking initiative and being proactive with making sure their needs are met.
Customer Communication Opportunities
- Adding a new service offering
- How can we bring awareness to our current customers?
- Are there specific customers this would be a good fit for?
- Annual review or consult
- What are your business objectives? Have they changed over last year?
- Do we offer products or services that align with these objectives?
- Are there areas for expansion?
- Proposals and quotes on new business
- At the time of sending a quote
- Are there bundled services or options to upgrade a quoted service?
- Are there options to add a warranty or service plan?
Based on your service relationship, you can point out options within your cloud-based quote-focused software. Your prospect reviews your proposal, and within the software, they can see your bundles and optional items. These allow you to upsell a more comprehensive package or cross-sell a related service. The customer can select their preferences, sign, and purchase in one session from any device.
Cross-Selling and Upselling to Maximize Customer LTV
When you focus on helping your customers win, they see you as a trusted advisor. You’re not simply chasing a sale; you’re invested in helping them succeed. That shift in perspective (on both sides) leads to a more collaborative approach and a higher customer lifetime value.
Revenue grows due to the higher LTV, and the average order size is higher.
Hopefully, you see how cross-selling and upselling play an essential role in your B2B sales strategy. They benefit your customers and improve the bottom line. With Quoter software, you can offer Quote Bundles and Optional Items within your quote that lets your customer see their options, choose, sign, and purchase from any device at the point of sale.
Looking for a demo?
We have a great quoting system, and a friendly support team to help you get onboarded. The best way to start is by booking a product demo and we’ll show you some of the key ways your business can use Quoter to optimize your quoting process.
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