How to Improve Customer Experience by Cross-Selling

How to Improve Customer Experience by Cross-Selling on Your Online Store

Bad customer experience is costly. 

A Zendesk study in 2020 revealed that after more than one bad experience, around 80% of consumers say they would rather do business with a competitor.

So, How Do You Improve Customer Experience by Cross-Selling On Your Online Store?

First things first.

What is Cross-Selling?

Wikipedia defines cross-selling as “the action or practice of selling an additional product or service to an existing customer. The objective of cross-selling can be either to increase the income derived from the client or to protect the relationship with the client or clients.” 

3 Differences Between Upselling and Cross-Selling

1. Upselling is the practice of persuading buyers to purchase a more expensive version of a product than the one they originally planned to buy, while cross-selling invites customers to buy related or complementary items, so as 

 2. Upselling aims at increasing the sales revenue, while cross-selling increases the number of items sold, along with increasing the total sales value.

3. Upselling increases the average purchase made by a customer, while cross-selling increases both, the average purchase and the average sale per customer. 

4 Effective Cross-Selling Methods

1. Offer Complementary Services

One way to cross-sell clients is by offering services that complement their purchase. For instance, if you sell software, you may consider selling a complementary service or vice-versa. As an example, if your agency sells SEO software, you could provide link-building services.

2. Suggest Additional Products Based on Previous Interaction

You can suggest additional products to a customer based on his/her previous interactions with your website and purchases they have made.

If you find that a client has been visiting your website, reading posts on digital marketing methods, and downloading marketing-related whitepapers, you can reach out directly to sell your digital marketing services.

3. Cross-Sell a Client by Pitching Your Promotions

You can cross-sell a client by informing them of your promotions. 

For instance, if you have a Black Friday discount on your social media marketing services, you could contact your content marketing clients to inform them of the sale. They might be interested in the service as a way to further promote their content.

4. Educate Your Clients

Lastly, some clients may not fully understand the value of your suite of services. They might realize that SEO is essential, but the advantages of specific SEO services (link building, content marketing, and mobile-friendly web design) may require more education.

By educating clients, you can illustrate the benefits of each service and how they might apply to your client. Sending them ebooks, related blog posts, or entering them into an email course are some proven ways to show your expertise and educate clients.

Once they see how each service can benefit their business, they will be more likely to agree to additional work.

How to Cross Sell in eCommerce Website

1. Consider Your Customer’s Best Interest

Avoid annoying your customers by suggesting products that do not add value to their purchase. You don’t want to recommend a product that makes them abandon the purchase.

For example, suggesting a customer purchase a power cord for a printer that doesn’t come with one is helpful and improves the shopping experience. You cannot say that for suggesting a customer add an unrelated item or a more expensive item to their cart!

2. Use the KISS Principle

KISS means keep it simple stupid.

Avoid overwhelming your customers by keeping your cross-selling efforts limited to just a few products. For example, if a shopper is purchasing a book by a particular author, it makes sense to suggest one or two books by the same author or even a couple of similar titles based on the book’s subject or genre.

3. Use High-Quality Photos and Videos

A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. Ditto for videos.

Use high-quality photos or videos to show your products, explain how they work, and provide the customer with a close look at how the item can benefit them. Amazon does this with their “Look Inside” feature for books. It encourages buyers to sample a product before purchase.

‍

4. Add Social Proof to Your Recommendations

This helps to demonstrate value and prove to customers that other people have purchased the same product and upsell/cross-sell.

You can add customer reviews to a product page, link to case studies or data about how the product has benefited customers, or by using phrases like “frequently bought together” or “popular related products” as evidence. You can even add customer testimonials or other things that demonstrate value to the email confirmation of purchase to reinforce this.

When Should You Cross-Sell?

Generally, it’s a good time to attempt to cross-sell to customers at two points during the purchasing experience: on the product page itself and during checkout.

Cross Selling Examples

1. A life insurance company suggesting its customer sign up for car or health insurance.

2. A wholesale mobile retailer suggesting a customer choose a network or carrier after one purchases a mobile.

3. A television brand suggesting its customers go for a home theater of its brand.

4. A laptop seller offering a customer a mouse, pen-drive, and/or accessories.

5. A hospitality brand offering tours and experiences to guests after booking the accommodation.

A Shopify Cross Sell App to Increase Your Sales

Are you running a Shopify store?

Do you want to make more sales without having to generate more traffic?

Use the Zoorix app to: 

* Get More Sales

* Offer Pre-Defined Deals

* Cross-sell Complementary Items

* Increase Average Order Value (AOV)

How Hooked Coolers Increased Conversions with the Zoorix App

Hooked Coolers is a Florida-based company that designs and ships all types of coolers and accessories.

The company wanted to maximize profit and increase value offering.

‍

By offering cart page cross sells using Zoorix, Hooked Coolers managed to increase their add to cart conversion rate from 18% to 33%, maximizing profits and increasing their value offering.