How to Upsell: 10 Upselling Marketing Strategies for Restaurants

Upselling is not a mere concept. It has been in existence for a long time. But have we talked much about this effective strategy? Probably not! You might be searching for upselling marketing strategies. But before we discuss that, let's simply define what is upselling in restaurants.

Upselling is the process of persuading customers to upgrade their current purchase. While restaurant upselling is a sales tactic, the best upselling is far beyond sales. The broader side of this strategy focuses on customer service. Making it less about sales and more about customer service involves awareness, understanding, and timing. Undoubtedly, upselling is much more than sales, especially in a restaurant.

In our previous blog, we talked about the meaning of upselling and why it is of utmost importance in today's business era. Let's dig deeper today and uncover some of the most lucrative upselling strategies that will help us know how to upsell in a restaurant effectively.

Let's get started!

10 Upselling Marketing Strategies for Restaurants

Upselling is a fine art. Be it suggesting an amazing appetiser to kick-start the cravings or a sumptuous dessert to end the meal, the power of suggestion can boost your restaurant's sales like nothing else. Moreover, with changing customer expectations, upselling is a handy tactic to improve the overall customer experience.

You can learn more about the benefits of upselling here.

Understanding its importance, let's explore some restaurant upselling techniques that are going to level up your restaurant business:

1. Training the Staff

Your restaurant staff interacts the most with your customers. Hence, it's important to train them on how to use upselling in the restaurant. Restaurants' employees should be trained to not force customers to buy something, but rather convince them to upgrade their existing order value. We have talked about the relationship between staff training and upselling in our previous blog as well. Learn more about it by clicking here

2. Seasonal Menu Changes

Having seasonal offers in your restaurant also works as an automatic upselling strategy. It also persuades your customers to make an add-on to their general order. With 'Navratri-combos', 'Christmas dreamy desserts', and many others, you can increase the order size of your customers. A lot of brands use this tactic to avoid sounding forceful to their customers. For example, Behrouz Biriyani also increased the varieties of biryanis during the festive season.

3. Menu Positioning

Some staff members feel shy or uncomfortable asking the customers to upgrade their order. Well, this tactic will help them. This tip works best for employees who don't want to involve in verbal communication. Under this technique, the menu positioning of your food items helps you upsell. You only need to position the items you want to upsell below or above the other items. It can naturally persuade your customers to order complimentary items.

4. Get Personal

One of the biggest mistakes that staff members make in upselling is copy-paste of same lines to every customer. Instead of doing that, employees should get personally involved with the customers. It will help you understand the customer better and customise the orders accordingly. Additionally, you will be able to get unbiased customer reviews due to the personal bonding of the staff with the customers.

5. Offer Samples

This tactic is commonly used by wine shops. The staff there often ask the customers to try the wine samples. It creates a craving in the customer. They taste the free sample, and if they like it, then are likely to upgrade their order. Offering samples will not only increase restaurant sales but also improve customer experience as the customer believes that the staff wants them to have the best quality products.

ALSO READ : What is restaurant upselling and why it is needed?

6. Upselling through the POS System

Restaurant technology has grown by leaps and bounds. Likewise, POS systems are not only used for billing but also for tracking customer preferences. Integrated with the CRM, the billing software holds essential customer data that can help you give the suitable suggestions to the customers for upselling. The right suggestions can be made after knowing what customer likes and dislikes.

7. Upsell through Online Orders

Your online customers are a new customer base that you may not face organically. Hence, it is easier to upsell to them. You do not necessarily need staff members for this type of upselling. The online ordering platform can do the work of upselling here. For example, food ordering apps often send you pop-ups like-"people who ordered this also ordered ..."-this is how online deliveries are convinced of upgrading their orders. Moreover, online orders, generally, are for a larger group of people, which implies a higher return per order.

8. Festive Menus

Your menu holds a lot of power when it comes to boosting restaurant sales. You can also use it to upsell by modifying it according to the ongoing festival. India is the land of festivals. Every month of the year comes with one or two festivals. Your festive menu with specialised food items will help to upsell to communities celebrating the festival.

9. Staff Behaviour and Gestures

Gestures play a very crucial role while convincing someone. If you want to have a successful upselling marketing strategy, then make sure that your staff is sincere and not making any pushy gestures while they try to upsell. The bottom line of upselling is that customers should not feel uncomfortable and forced to make a purchase. A sincere staff attitude is a must to ensure upselling goes seamlessly. Gestures like nodding your head while suggesting are considered a plus.

10. Rewards

We have talked a lot of time about how rewards can boost restaurant sales and how to upsell in the restaurant. So, here's one more time! Rewards can work in two ways. One is when you reward your staff members every time they make an upgraded sale. The other is when you reward your customers. You can use different types of reward programs to persuade customers to make more purchases. The most common example of reward upselling is- "Order worth Rupees this and you get a percentage off". We have heard of this offer many times. Here, the percentage off will induce the customers to make the order worth the mentioned price. Thus, the reward impacts the customer's initial purchase.

Summing Up

With all these upselling marketing strategies, you can also boost restaurant sales. While there are many other strategies that restaurants use, you need to find the one that best suits your needs. With all the upselling tactics, we hope now you don't have to think about how to upsell in a restaurant. You have these ready-made solutions here to help you sell more!

Are you a restaurant owner looking to grow your business on a budget? Reelo can be your perfect partner! Get in touch, and our experts will help you out.