Cross-Selling Tips & Examples to Increase Sales at Your Restaurant
- By Otilia Dobos
- INCREASE RESTAURANT REVENUE
- NOV 01, 2024
Offering delicious food and exceptional service is the first step to running a successful restaurant. But, in such a competitive industry, you need to do more to stand out and increase your profit.
A great way to encourage clients to buy more of your food is cross-selling. The trick is to make good recommendations that tempt customers without making them feel pressured.
In this article, you will find a short, yet informative guide on how to implement cross-selling at your restaurant.
What is cross selling?
Cross-selling in a restaurant is a technique used to invite existing customers to spend more than they intended to with the goal to increase your business's profit.
Unlike upselling which focuses on getting clients to choose a more expensive dish, cross-selling encourages customers to order related products, such as a beverage that pairs well with their main dish.
The benefits of cross selling for restaurants
Doing cross selling right needs a bit of getting used to, but the benefits outweigh the effort you put in:
- Increase average order value: by offering knowledgeable suggestions for side dishes, desserts, and drinks, you tempt the customer to spend more at your restaurant;
- Enhance customer experience: train your employees to ask clients about their food preferences, so they can make recommendations customers will appreciate. For example, if a person says they like fruit-based desserts and drinks, your server should know which items on the menu include fruits;
- More loyal clients: if the server had a polite and friendly attitude and made great cross-selling suggestions, customers would appreciate the extra attention they got and come back for the same experience;
- Bigger profit: Cross-selling's main goal is to get customers to spend money at your restaurant, especially on high-profit menu items that will increase your net profit.
Cross-selling examples
Cross-selling doesn't have to be an extra chore for your employees, if you train them right, it can become a natural part of their service. Here is what you should focus on:
- Suggesting complementary items: once the client chooses a main dish, help them make the best decision by recommending the perfect side dish or sauces;
- Making pairing recommendations: drinks have a high-profit margin, so you should make it a goal to sell more of them. An easy way to do so is to be an expert and pairing and know to suggest a white wine for fish, craft beer for fried dishes, red wine for red meat, etc;
- Offering dessert or coffee at the end of a meal: even after a big meal, there is always room for dessert if you make it sound appetizing. And if sweets are not right for your client, maybe they would like to end their experience with a delicious specialty coffee?
Moreover, don't limit yourself to in-location sales, you can also cross-sell online. All you need is the free online ordering system from GloriaFood that you can set up in 10 minutes and have it operational on your website by the end of the day.
Start cross selling online by:
- Offering toppings: allow customers to create the perfect dish by offering several high-profit toppings they could add to their chosen menu item;
- Creating combo meals: people perceive combo meals as better value for money even if there is no price drop because they include all the necessary menu items for a full meal;
- Add pairing recommendations in the menu descriptions: to tempt people to also ass the matching drink to their online order.
Cross selling best practices
If you just try to push customers to buy more every time, you may end up upsetting customers and even getting a negative review. Follow these cross-selling best practices to achieve increased customer satisfaction and a bigger profit:
Personalize your recommendations
You may have a set list of high-profit margin menu items that you would like to sell more. But not all of them will be a great fit for each customer. For example, you can’t suggest a chocolate-based dish to a client that dislikes chocolate.
If you want to ace cross-selling, take the time to learn your customer's food preferences and have your servers suggest dishes that fit their needs.
Create promotions
Customers are more likely to buy one more menu item if they can take advantage of a promotion. Your employees should mention the available offers and their conditions (such as minimum order value) and let clients decide if they want to enjoy the promotion or not.
You can also add promotions to your online restaurant menu. The GloriaFood online ordering system lets customers know when they are close to the needed minimum order value for the offer to tempt them to add more items to the cart.
What’s more, it will only take you seconds to add a variety of attractive restaurant promotions to your menu, such as:
- Free delivery for orders over $60
- Free dessert for orders over $80
- 2+ 1 pizza offer
Check out this informative video:
Read more: Implement these 10 best restaurant promotions right now to increase your sales
Train your employees
While you can set up online cross-selling yourself, for in-location, you will have to rely on your employees. To achieve the best results, give them the tools and the knowledge for the job with training.
You must focus on two main things:
- Menu knowledge: servers can’t recommend dishes if they don’t know what is on the menu. Ideally, you should have servers taste all the menu items because it will help them remember the taste and ingredients when they make suggestions for customers. Moreover, repeat the process whenever you launch new menu items;
- Cross-selling technique: if the server pushes customers to order more and keeps insisting, they won’t get clients to buy, but they will ruin their experience and prevent them from visiting again. Instead, have your servers ask clients if they would like a side dish recommendation or if they would like dessert at the end of the meal, just once. If the client says no, they should not persist.
Read more: Restaurant Staff Incentives: 10 Efficient Tips to Motivate Employees
Rely on restaurant statistics
If you don't know what items you should cross-sell, look over your restaurant statistics to see what your best-selling dishes are, what menu items clients usually order together, and what promotion works best for your business.
You can get access to all the above restaurant data and more with the Reports module from GloriaFood. By constantly monitoring restaurant analytics, you can make data-based decisions that further your progress.
Final words
Don't wait around for a magic wand that can make your sales increase. Start doing cross-selling at your restaurant and you will notice not only a rise in profit but also a higher number of satisfied customers that recommend your business online.