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Spoken like a guy who's never had to sell a product in order to eat :D I have no doubt Comcast takes it over the top, but the training materials I read seemed p

Spoken like a guy who's never had to sell a product in order to eat :D I have no doubt Comcast takes it over the top, but the training materials I read seemed pretty decent.

Natsu 12y ago
Good point. Hasn't everyone here had at least one part-time job where they made you do upselling?
- mikeash 12y ago
  Nope! He's right, I never have. I can't blame the techs for responding to the incentives given, of course. I can blame the company for giving them bad incentives, though. The fundamental contradiction here is that what succeeds at selling in the short term isn't necessarily what succeeds at selling in the long term. What's best for the company is usually satisfied customers who get the services they need and no more. What's best for the sales guy's monthly numbers may be customers who have been convinced to buy way more than they need and will probably eventually get fed up and leave. Companies that tell their people to sell will probably produce an obnoxious environment. Companies that tell their people to satisfy the customer, including selling them stuff they want or need, will probably be nice to interact with.
  - bitJericho 12y ago
    Indeed. Just to kind of give you some insight. Everybody says no at first. Everybody... Unless you called up the salesguy and said "Hey I wanna buy..." then you're almost certainly going to say no up front. The real salesman deftly dodges that objection and starts selling. The salesman (even if it's just the owner) is one of the most important roles in a company, without a sale you may have a great product but you will have no income.
  - Natsu 12y ago
    My experience was in selling ice cream. I did better than anyone else simply by trying to anticipate what people would like and offering them that. I never tried to push something onto someone who did not want it and when a customer knew exactly what they wanted, I let them have exactly that. All selling was via suggestion - "X would go well with that ice cream" or something akin to this. I won every award for upselling until they asked me to bow out so someone else could win :) (I didn't mind because I wasn't really interested in the movie tickets you'd win for this in the first place.)

Spoken like a guy who's never had to sell a product in order to eat :D I have no doubt Comcast takes it over the top, but the training materials I read seemed pretty decent.

Natsu 12y ago

Good point. Hasn't everyone here had at least one part-time job where they made you do upselling?

mikeash 12y ago
Nope! He's right, I never have. I can't blame the techs for responding to the incentives given, of course. I can blame the company for giving them bad incentives, though. The fundamental contradiction here is that what succeeds at selling in the short term isn't necessarily what succeeds at selling in the long term. What's best for the company is usually satisfied customers who get the services they need and no more. What's best for the sales guy's monthly numbers may be customers who have been convinced to buy way more than they need and will probably eventually get fed up and leave. Companies that tell their people to sell will probably produce an obnoxious environment. Companies that tell their people to satisfy the customer, including selling them stuff they want or need, will probably be nice to interact with.
- bitJericho 12y ago
  Indeed. Just to kind of give you some insight. Everybody says no at first. Everybody... Unless you called up the salesguy and said "Hey I wanna buy..." then you're almost certainly going to say no up front. The real salesman deftly dodges that objection and starts selling. The salesman (even if it's just the owner) is one of the most important roles in a company, without a sale you may have a great product but you will have no income.
- Natsu 12y ago
  My experience was in selling ice cream. I did better than anyone else simply by trying to anticipate what people would like and offering them that. I never tried to push something onto someone who did not want it and when a customer knew exactly what they wanted, I let them have exactly that. All selling was via suggestion - "X would go well with that ice cream" or something akin to this. I won every award for upselling until they asked me to bow out so someone else could win :) (I didn't mind because I wasn't really interested in the movie tickets you'd win for this in the first place.)