If you attend seminar’s about how to increase your sales, the common theme is that it is easier to sell to existing customers/clients than to have to find new ones.

In hospitality we call this “up selling”. It appears to be an art that a lot of operators have forgotten. When I first started out as a waiter, many moons ago, it was what I was taught. For example when you take a sweet/dessert order ask the customer if they would like a coffee, and then would you like a liqueur with your coffee? You get the idea. Bu, I have noticed that both in independent outlets and chain outlets this seems to have gone the way of the dodo.

My partner and I were recently on Holiday on the Isle of Man and went to the pub around the corner from the cottage we were staying. It seems that we had had to leave the UK and the EU to see that possibly “Up selling” was not dead!. For there behind the bar next to the barista coffee machine was a large blackboard encouraging us to try an Specialty Coffee (also known as a Liqueur Coffee or Floater Coffee ). The “up selling” worked as I had another pint and my partner ordered a Caribbean Coffee, so far so good, but from here it all went wrong.

The bar staff poured a shot of Tia Maria into a coffee cup, topped it up with coffee and filled a jug with milk. Apparently my face was a picture! It turned out the bar person had never been shown how to make a “Specialty Coffee” and the person who knew how to make them “only worked at lunchtime”. Two nights later, we had the same scenario , all be it with a different member of staff, but this time the bar manager sorted it out.

My conclusion from this, is that if you are going to “up sell” then make sure your staff are trained, because in this case rather increasing the spend it cost the business money as on the first occasion the coffee was “comp’ed” and on the second it took two goes at making the coffee.