Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 142 - The TA's guide to Upselling & Cross-Selling
Transcript
- Rachel K: Hi, it is day 142 of the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. Welcome back. I really appreciate you coming by to listen, even though sometimes my audio glitches out and I sound like a robot for a second. It's fine. Today's episode, oh, if you don't know who I am, I'm your host, Rachel K. Head over to elevatewithrachelk.com if you have any questions to figure out who I am. I'm a travel agency owner. have courses, coaching, mentorship programs for travel advisors. Because we should all be millionaires." Quote, Rachel Rogers. All right, today's day 142. Let's talk about upselling and cross-selling and how to make it feel natural. Wait a minute, Rachel. Upselling and cross-selling, what's the difference? Okay, upselling is upgrade. Go watch Idiocracy, upgrade. That is upgrading the room category, upgrading the flight fare class, upgrading from shared to private transportation. That is the upgrade. That is the upselling. Cross-selling is adding products, don't forget, I am like the CEO of McDonald's, everything's a product, adding products to the trip that provide more value for your client. There is a difference between upselling and cross-selling. ⁓ But the overall is you are providing value to your clients in a personalized way. So you can upgrade to the club level. Like say you have a consultation and the client's like, I've never been to an AI before and I want to do this trip and I hate buffets. And you have a place in mind, but you have to have club level in order to have breakfast. That is not buffet. you automatically upsell the club level room category instead of the regular one. And when they're like, why do you want to make me pay more? Even though they're not going to, but if they are, then you can just say, well, unfortunately, if you downgrade into a regular room, like if you get one of those clients like, I checked Expedia, it's a thousand dollars less, but it's not club level, then you can be like, yeah, and you're going to have buffet for breakfast. Or you hate Buffets, why would you do that to yourself? I can do that for you. But anyway, upgraded club level rooms, upgrading to private transfers, or upgrading a tour to a private tour, that is like an upsell. ⁓ A cross-sell would be like travel insurance in general for your protection and the upsell of the cross-sell would be like ⁓ a policy with more coverage that is aligned with their values and maybe throwing in CIFAR, things like that. Customized experiences are going to be an example of cross-selling. Okay. You can do this without totally blowing their budget. Use your knowledge and expertise. I'm gonna talk about a honeymoon I did, I think it was for January 25th and I booked it like March of 24th. And it was this like friend of the family people. I'm just going to spill all the tea. They were lovely couple. They had never traveled internationally on their own young 20s, like early 20s couple. And I was like, OK, I know exactly what we're doing because they wanted to see sloths. And I was like, well, then you're going to go to Costa Rica. That was like the primary objective. Beach, sloths, ocean, sloths. All right, well you're going to Costa Rica and I chose I Think it did secrets. Papagayo So I'm like, ⁓ they would fit in well with secrets Papagayo and the beach and I told them I was like the beach is not gonna be beautiful white sand beach You don't get that a whole lot in Costa Rica. It's gonna be a little more rustic ⁓ But we met in person to talk about this and They said they had eight days and then they had eight thousand dollars budget Thousand dollars night should be enough with airfare from the middle of nowhere, Missouri to Costa Rica for eight days in Costa Rica and I was like Okay in also in January folks I was like So I knew This couple should get a better view for their room because it's a honeymoon ⁓ I was like they should get the bungalows at Secrets Papagayo, whatever, Ocean View, and Club Level because they were one of those like we don't like the buffets. I think that's why. I was like you're gonna get Club Level. And when I priced it out, was like $1,000 more out of their budget for those eight nights. And so I was like, what days do you all have off for this trip, for your honeymoon, immediately after your wedding? And they were like, we have exactly eight days off. And I was like, so you really want to fly? You realize your flights are going to be 10 hour, 12 hour days. You really want to fly back here and then immediately go to work the next day? And they were like, ⁓ I didn't even think about that. So I cut their trip. I was like, let's give you a full day to recover and a full day for like, I think I did six nights instead of eight, and a full day for like any travel issues because this is January. There's a lot of ice storms in our area. So there's a huge chance flight delays are gonna screw with your trip. And they're like, ⁓ okay. And I got it down to like six. And I was like, now you have room in your budget for gratuities and I think the flights were not included. So like you can get your flight. No, the flights were included. Gratuities and what else was it? We can upgrade your driver to an English speaking driver because they told me their Spanish isn't great. And I said, and you can get travel insurance because you're traveling in January. And if you're from the Midwest traveling in January, you should definitely have insurance because your flights will be delayed. And they're like, yeah, so we deposited on the room, great, grand, lovely. They booked their flights. Then Mommy Dearest stepped in, who's never worked in travel, has barely managed to book trips on her own, just kind of stepped in. And I think it was the groom's mom. And she just called me up and she's like, they don't need travel insurance. And I was like, ⁓ yes they do. I'm advising it. Well, they're going to decline it. And then they came back and said, we're declining the travel insurance. And I was like, okay, this is a huge mistake. And then she's like, they can get by with a non-English speaking driver. You need to, you need to cut that down. This is way too much money. And I'm like, it's literally within their budget. It's not too much money. A, it's not too much money. B, why do you care? This is a grown man. This is not your baby anymore. Get over it. So anyway, was like, okay, so I did whatever they asked me to do. And guess what, chicken butts? Their flights were delayed. Their flights were delayed like a full day. I had to cancel excursions and all kinds of things. And then good old mommy dearest is texting me, Well, what is the insurance going to do about this? And I was like, just, they decline the insurance because of your quote unquote professional advice. So nobody has insurance. Nothing's going to happen. Anyway, that's just kind of a venti story a little bit. Not venti in the drink, but. I did get it closed is what I'm saying. I did get it within their budget. I did upsell. I did some cross selling with the tours. I did my best to cross sell with like and upsell but then it was all shut down and then there were issues and I'm like, well, these were decisions that were made. Anyway, this is why I like to when I do a proposal like offer all the upgrades that possible that fits in the scenario. and then let them make the decisions from there. All right, so do's and don'ts of upselling and cross-selling. Do, number one, focus on the value of improving the experience, not just your bottom line. Okay, so again, back to that story when I was looking at the room, I was like, should cut this a few days shorter so you have time to rest and you can get a better room. It's your honeymoon. You want a lot of romance and relaxation, right? ⁓ upsell and cross-sell what is complimentary. So these people in this example, they wanted a bunch of tours and they looked at the tours and showed them to me and I was like, okay, great. I provided some tours initially based on slots and that was the, I added in a few more tour options. their time with the tours is like you do not have to book these right away. But I added in a few more tour options ⁓ that were based on their interests and were complimentary to the rest of the trip. Like I wasn't going to be like skydiving because it's a honeymoon and these people are not very adventurous people. Do upsell and cross-sell in a personalized way thinking of them. Again, focus on the value and think of how it's going to affect them. ⁓ Be very clear and have transparent pricing if you can. With cross selling, can say, normally it's about this price. It can increase unless we lock it in now, but I don't want to rush you if that's how you want to do it. Now the don'ts. Don't be pushy telling them this is the best option. This is it. This is all I'm offering you. A, you give them no option, which is like a huge liability for you because you're You're just telling them what to book. And there's like a big local agency in my area that just does that. And I'm like, how have they not gotten sued? You don't give them any choice. Like you should give them a few choices. Don't overwhelm them. There's a balance to strike. ⁓ But telling them this is what you're getting is very, very pushy and ⁓ very manipulative. You're not educating them on why so much. You're just like, is the best value. This is why you're getting this. ⁓ You don't want to totally limit choices, like I said. You also don't want to completely oversell with too many choices. And I'll talk about that. Yep, here in a second, sorry. I had make sure was still in my notes. ⁓ So luxury, remember luxury service is being able to preemptively anticipate their needs and wants. So you don't want to just limit it to what you want to sell and you don't want to just give them this huge catalog full of options. Two to three, maybe no more than five. ⁓ Have respect for their budget and I'll talk about this, expand on this in a little bit. Don't just say, I mean if it's possible on their budget, you can advise them properly, but don't just say, you're gonna need way more money if you want this kind of a trip. Like you need to be like, well, let's, know, be a partner. Don't be, you do it my way and you buy what I want you to buy because this is how much money I wanna make this month. ⁓ Don't ignore timing. If there's a rush booking, like a last minute booking, Don't even, I mean you can kind of upsell on the room category and stuff, but I don't think I would recommend a cross sell if they're just like, we need this book today, this is what we want. Don't try to pressure them into anything else. If they're annoyed with you already. They're just gonna annoy them even further. And they're gonna be like, this bitch just wants money. Offer, do not offer irrelevant components because again, that makes you look greedy. Okay? Irrelevant to their trip, to their values, to their goals. Let's say they are celiac and they wanna go to Italy and you're like, let's have dinner in a family's home. and it's gonna be a pasta making class. Question, they have celiac, that doesn't even, no. This just makes you look like you don't care. Okay, so for the cross-selling tips, this is something that I like to do, and I use Project Expedition, so I'll create wish lists for different destinations, and I base it off of my ideal client avatar. And I do five max in a destination of what I think truly connects with my ideal client avatar and that niche. And I create these little wish lists and I put them in my workflow so they can preview tours. Usually I give them an extra 30 days before I follow up. And I like to have all the tours completed around 45 to 60 days. With respect to budget, make it make sense. Use the 25 % rule. Do not cross-sell a private $500 per person tour when they booked like a Carnival Interior cabin on a three-night sailing. That doesn't make any sense. It's gonna be the same amount of money and they're gonna be like, is outrageous. So 25 % of what they've already spent can be allocated towards cross-selling or upselling. Like if you hit over 25%, they're probably not gonna want it. And they're gonna be like, this person does not pay attention to my needs or wants. So keep that in mind, if a tour is $200 and they spent like $200 per person, so $400, and they spent $6,000 on their trip already, that is not even 10%. They will do that tour, right? They might do two of those because that's only 15 % of their overall budget that they've already spent. If you were to... on a $6,000 trip, try to offer them a $2,000 tour, they're going to say no because that's too much of their budget overspent. All right. Those are tips on the all about cross-selling and upselling do's and don'ts and a crazy story of a mommy dearest trying to control her little baby boy's honeymoon. That backfired. I hope you enjoyed that. I have so many stories, it's ridiculous. Alright, have a great day. Thanks for stopping by and tomorrow is going to be the day we expand on the client retention efforts. Okay, have a great day.