🍸 TRL Weekly: How To Avoid Upsell Drama

Your weekly lesson and tactical reminders inside.

November 24, 2024

Happy Sunday, future server/bartender millionaire.

In today’s lesson Brandon is teaching us how to avoid upsell drama.

Our Last Three Lessons:

You can read the rest of the past weekly lessons here.

Today at a Glance:

  • Weekly Lesson: How To Avoid Upsell Drama

  • Tactical Reminders: Your Video Lessons

🍸 Weekly Lesson:
How To Avoid Upsell Drama

The worst thing to happen after you upsell is the guest to say “I didn’t know this was extra” when they see the bill.

Now when this happens, that means you didn’t upsell properly and you most likely didn’t give the best service.

I will explain:

There are many things that affect a guest feeling like they ‘have to say something’ or ‘want to complain’.

Here are the first couple factors:

  1. Do they like you as a person? The way you make sure that they do is by being warm, happy and always positive!

  2. Are you giving great service? Are they sitting with empty waters, dirty plates, empty cocktails, etc. If yes, then you are asking for the guests to complain.

So how it works…

Once a guest notices one bad thing, they start to look for more.

  1. Think of a person you don’t really like that much.

If they came over and tried to upsell you, you would probably think in your head ‘you see, they are trying to upsell us… so annoying’.

  1. But now think of your favorite person in the world…

If they did the same exact thing, you would think ‘wow they are so good at their job, I love that they were guiding us through the menu’.

So ultimately, that is a huge factor when a guest thinks of whether or not to complain about something.

Next factor is sometimes your verbiage.

Use words like “add” or “upgrade” so the guest knows something is extra without you having to say it.

You can also notice when a guest is slightly confused about something and guide them through it.

For example: If you are upselling a margarita and they don’t really even know tequilas too well, you can start explaining more. “Our house is good, it is XYZ tequila for $12, but a lot of people prefer cazadores which is $14. Which one sounds good to you?”

Note: I would only do this if the guest is confused, NOT every single time.

Lastly, know your restaurant.

If you are doing sneaky upselling at Chili’s or Applebees, yea, the guest might get annoyed.

To make it easy, if the guests are clearly looking for a deal then don’t push upsells too much.

If the guests are coming to have a great time, then you can be more aggressive with your upsells.

🚀 Tactical Reminders:

  1. Brandon - 3 Ways to be a Good Server -

    Video Lesson: Click here.

  2. Amanda - Cutting Someone Off -

    Video Lesson: Click here.

  3. Derek - Clearing Tables -

    Video Lesson: Click here.

That’s all for week thirty five.

See you next week,

The Restaurant Launch Team