Boost Your Sales Strategies for Teaching Fast- Food Staff the Art of Upselling
them to purchase the entire menu item. Another benefit is that handing out small samples is low in cost. Allow your employees to sample the menu items too, so they can recommend them with confidence. The 25% Rule. Avoid pitching menu items that are more than 25% more expensive than the one the customer initially ordered. If a customer is considering a chicken sandwich for $8, for example, don’t suggest a $15 basket of ribs. Instead, try recommending a side dish or additional topping for a few dollars more. Also, suggesting that customers add a packaged take-out item to their order, such as cookies or a dessert, can be an effective upselling technique. Build Trust. Above all, show your staff how to use these techniques in a polite and helpful way, with the goal of increasing the customer’s engagement and trust in your brand. Employees must listen well, heed diners’ verbal and nonverbal cues, and learn to de-escalate upselling efforts if the diner shows no interest. Upselling should feel more like great service than a hard sell. Also, retrain your employees frequently to ensure top performance. Including the art of upselling in an ongoing employee training program can make the difference between meeting or missing your key performance indicators. And you may be surprised by the positive impact of a skillful upselling program on customer engagement!
Encouraging fast-food customers to incorporate pricier or additional items into their orders can significantly impact restaurant operators’ profits. Coaching employees to achieve these upselling goals in a way that enhances customer engagement without causing offense demands a certain level of finesse.
Implementing upselling is critical in today’s hyper-competitive fast-food market. Here are some techniques to prepare your employees to upsell with skill.
System Prompts. Build upselling prompts into your point-of-sale system and teach employees to heed them as they take orders. These systems can tap data collected from past customers’ decisions to increase the likelihood of upselling success. Consider running a competition or posting a leaderboard to identify employees who are the most successful upsellers. Offer a meaningful reward, such as a cash bonus for the winner. And don’t forget to say thank you to top performers.
Free Samples. Providing customers with a taste of a dish or special topping can be enough to close the deal. Whetting a customer’s appetite can entice
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My preference was always that the rubrics be dropped. I represent franchisees, and I support their efforts to exercise discretion over their operations. I don’t believe my clients need to be told how to staff their restaurants. Since then, the NLRB has flip-flopped on this issue two more times. After changing the standard in 2015 to broaden parent company liability, the agency reversed itself in 2020 under former President Trump, and reversed itself again this year. Each time Washington changes the rules, the industry spends a lot of time and money to provide comments or file lawsuits. The resulting lack of predictability is a hindrance to business. As some anonymous writer once said, small business isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s for the brave, the patient, and the persistent. It’s for the overcomer. As the quote suggests, franchising is here to stay. The franchising model is often at the forefront of financial and organizational innovation in this country. Even if this rule eventually does take effect, franchisors and franchisees will find a way to deal with it.
Classic Cheesecake
Ingredients •
24 graham crackers, crushed
• • • • •
1 cup granulated sugar
• •
1/4 cup butter, melted
3 large eggs
3 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup sour cream
Directions 1.
Preheat oven to 350 F. 2. Combine graham cracker crumbs and butter; press onto the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan. 3. Beat cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. 4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until blended. 5. Add vanilla extract, flour, and sour cream; mix until blended. 6. Pour into prepared pan. 7. Bake for 45 minutes or until the center is almost set. 8. Cool completely before serving. 3 (206) 724-0846
–Nate Riordan
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