Increase Profits In Your Cleaning Business With Upselling and Cross Selling

"Would you like fries with that burger?"

That is the common phrase you hear when people talk about upselling. In a cleaning business an upsell might be, "Would you like your refrigerator deep cleaned today?"  Or if you just finished cleaning carpet you might ask, "Would you like us to add carpet protectant to protect against spills?"

What exactly is an upsell? It is any service that you can add to the original sale that is directly related to the original service. PLUS, it increases the customer's experience of what they were trying to get from you when they made the original purchase. So if they wanted clean carpet, adding carpet protectant to help prevent against additional spills will add value to what they originally hired you for.

Upselling also happens right at the moment of providing the service, or shortly thereafter -- during or right after making payment. This is the perfect time because they're more likely to spend a little additional now, since they are paying you right now for the service.

In the case of a commercial cleaning service, where you typically schedule the services first and then invoice later, the perfect time to upsell is at the time they schedule the service. If they're scheduling a tile and grout cleaning, upsell them on grout sealing at the same time.

A good rule of thumb for upselling is that the product or service you are trying to upsell should be 60% or less of the original offer price. So if your carpet cleaning job is $250.00, your upsell should be no more than $150.00.

Cross selling is a little different from upselling. What you are doing here is selling additional products or services that are not necessarily complementary to the original service. An example of cross selling would be a home cleaning company selling window washing or pet waste clean up; or a commercial cleaning company selling restroom supplies.

When it comes to cross selling there is no rule of thumb on price since it's not related to the original purchase, so the price can be anything.

If you are not incorporating upselling and cross selling into your marketing plan, you are missing great opportunities to increase sales and profits in your cleaning company. If you ARE upselling and cross selling, please share examples by posting your comments below.

Comments

[Bill @ carpet cleaning orange county]

So true. I am always looking for anything else at a home or business that we can make a big improvement on. We are a carpet cleaning company in orange county and a lot of times clients don't even realize that we do tile and grout cleaning or, upholstery cleaning. Sometimes you just have to ask or recommend and you will find that a lot of clients are happy to find out you can clean tile and grout or whatever the case may be.

I try to emphasize this to my technicians who are not really comfortable with selling and explain it is more like offering or suggesting. So there is not that fear of rejection or whatever it is that makes some afraid to sell?

I have personally cross sold window washing and tile and grout cleaning from a carpet cleaning background.

[Nicole Slinder]

You really make it seem so simple with your presentation but I find that topic to be really something that I think I would under no circumstances understand. It seems too complicated and also really broad for me. I am looking forward for your next post, I will try to get the hang of it!

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