Hospitality glossary · Service and operations
Upselling is suggesting a better or bigger option than the one a guest first asked for, such as a premium gin, a large glass of wine or a better cut of steak. Done well, it helps the guest choose and raises spend per head.
In practice
Definitions are easy. What matters is how the thing behaves in a real operation, and where it tends to go wrong.
Most good upselling in hospitality comes from knowing the product. A server who has tasted the specials and can describe the wines in plain words can make a suggestion the guest trusts, without a script. A related idea is cross-selling: suggesting something extra, such as a side, a dessert or a coffee, rather than a better version of the same thing. Both show up in your average spend per head.
Setting a target for every table and rewarding the hard sell. Guests notice a script, and a guest pushed into something they did not want may not come back. Train the team to know the menu and to read the table instead, and let the extra sales follow from that.
Questions
Something here that doesn’t match what you’re seeing in your own business? That is usually worth a conversation rather than another article.
Upselling is suggesting a better or bigger option than the one a guest first asked for, such as a premium gin, a large glass of wine or a better cut of steak. Done well, it helps the guest choose and raises spend per head. Most good upselling in hospitality comes from knowing the product. A server who has tasted the specials and can describe the wines in plain words can make a suggestion the guest trusts, without a script. A related idea is cross-selling: suggesting something extra, such as a side, a dessert or a coffee, rather than a better version of the same thing. Both show up in your average spend per head.
Setting a target for every table and rewarding the hard sell. Guests notice a script, and a guest pushed into something they did not want may not come back. Train the team to know the menu and to read the table instead, and let the extra sales follow from that.
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