I was sitting in a locally owned fast food restaurant earlier this month and had the occasion to watch the counter-person at work. As each customer gave her their order, she would repeat it and then when they were finished, she would ask if that was all. Each person said yes. She then proceeded to recommend something else to them (and for each person it was different). 80% of the people said yes to her offer increasing the sale by 10%-30%, with one “add-on” actually exceeding the original order.
Cross-selling works, especially if you apply brain power to the cross-selling offer. As I watched this likely minimum wage worker successfully add-on to each order, I thought how easy it would be to pay her more based on her value to the store from her cross-selling. Many of today’s minimum wage workers are front line people who could potentially add a lot of value to their company. How is it not a win-win to compensate them to do that?
And for the rest of us, let’s remember, smart cross-selling (and even not so smart) works.