Prepare Your Reps

Before you work out an upsell pitch, resolve the original reason for the customer’s call. If possible, use this original impetus or the specifics of your resolution to craft your customized approach. Find out if customers would rather place their orders online. Then the rep will need to get them to clickthrough to the right links. (Or, would customers rather the rep take care of that for them?) Also decide which screens you want customers to see while reps are handling the processing end.

Your reps should have experience viewing different browsers’ characteristics and should know what the different browser screens and screen sizes can do to alter appearance and functionality. They’ll also need to figure out the most elegant way of verbally expressing navigation. Write navigational instructions out like a script to make sure they don’t miss any steps.

Help desk techniques are useful here. For example, the only effective way to proof these things is to have one person call out the directions and another follow them step-by-step to see if they’re accurate and complete. Experimentation probably will lead to increased usability and effectiveness. So if reps figure out better methods on the fly, validate them promptly and then teach the techniques to everyone.

When you draw up an architecture for the dual channel sales methodology, consider that it’s roughly the same as classic upselling by phone. For instance, the rep refers to the picture/Web page and uses word pictures in describing the merchandise and giving a reason for the customer to want it. The rep still gives other reasons, such as why it goes with something else the customer is buying, why it would serve the customer’s needs, why this particular interaction makes the customer eligible for a special or discount price and so forth.

Some language that can be used for both print catalog and Web pages:
“While you’re on that page …”
“Did you happen to see …”
“While we’re talking about those widgets, would you like to see the ones we have on special?”

And be sure to follow up with instructions on how to get to the specific page.

For customers who order by phone, it’s a great time to encourage them to give their e-mail address so you can send them updates and remind Web shoppers to add your address to their list of approved senders.

Liz Kislik is president of Liz Kislik Associates LLC, a consultancy that focuses on customer satisfaction and employee success as the building blocks of a resilient, effective enterprise. You can reach her at (516) 568-2932 or lizk@lizkislik.com.