By Tracy Morin
When a customer orders from your pizzeria—either in-store or online—are they offered add-ons, larger sizes, drink and dessert recommendations, or other profit-boosting boons for your business? If not, you’re missing out on easy ways to increase ticket averages.
PMQ tapped five marketing experts from the pizza industry to share their best tips and tricks for engaging in the art of upselling. Start using these strategies today to enhance your profits, employee satisfaction and overall customer experience.
Building Relationships
Betsy Rammos-Tsichlis, owner and operator, Pantry Pizza, Dorchester, MA
Upselling gets your customers to try out new menu items that sometimes they don’t even know existed or weren’t expecting. Obviously, upselling is also a great way to increase average ticket sales. This is a great incentive for servers or tip-waged employees to increase their tips.
We have an online ordering platform that asks the customer at the end of the order: “Would you like to add an appetizer and or a dessert?” or “Don’t forget to add your drink!” That way, they can add it if they haven’t already done so. When on the phone taking a pickup or delivery order, we ask the customer, “Would you like a drink or a dessert with that?” Sometimes, people honestly forget to order something like that, and it does jog their memory and encourages them to purchase. You’re bringing in more money—and not spending ad money to do so—by upselling to someone who’s already ordering.
Upselling is as easy as asking, “What kind of soda with your slice?” or “Which dessert would you like tonight?” or “The large sub is only a dollar more.” Incorporate it into your online ordering platform as well as your telephone script for your order takers. The more the customer orders from you, the closer a relationship you establish.
Enhancing the Experience
Rosario Farruggio, manager, A Modo Mio, Arlington, VA
Upselling is not just for profit but to enhance the experience—to show and teach customers about our culture and make dining more exciting and flavorful. Appetizers get you talking about the meal; wine and beer complement your mains or pizzas; desserts end the meal with something sweet that can be shared. And don’t forget the after-dinner drink to help digest it all—if it’s lunch, espresso is a must.
Some upselling tactics include:
- Appealing descriptions and beautiful pictures of the items
- Knowledgeable servers who properly offer appetizers, pair drinks, and set the stage for desserts
- Fair pricing
For online ordering, in addition to the images and descriptions, make it easy to choose and order upsells. In-store, servers should have firsthand experience with the items they are upselling. If they know how good something tastes, they’ll be able to teach customers. So teach employees the experience as well. Have them understand the cultural part. Reward them when they have those higher sales.
Upselling can make a 10% to 30% sales difference, in my experience. But you’ll also retain more customers, because they have fully enjoyed your restaurant.
Digital Marketing Strategies
Matt Plapp, CEO (Chief Energy Officer), America’s Best Restaurants and DRYVER, Florence, KY
Upselling is one of the most significant ways a restaurant can impact its bottom line, but it’s also the hardest thing to train your team to do, so it’s massively important to leverage your digital marketing to help. There are two key tactics you should be using monthly with your digital marketing:
1. Give customers a digital promotion that forces them to try an appetizer or dessert. But, more importantly, give them an offer they’d feel stupid saying no to: something that’s 100% free! A few years ago, one of my favorite pizza joints offered me a free order of three cookies for my next visit. I had never ordered a dessert at this spot on prior visits. On my next visit, I redeemed the promotion, and they were terrific. Yes, the restaurant gave me a promo that cost them about $1 or $2, but I’ve since ordered those $9 cookies at least 50 times, and they’ve gotten more than $500 in cookie sales.
2. Run a double points promo. At a one-location pizza restaurant in Arizona, they send out a promotion through their loyalty program every month to encourage customers they know are visiting to spend more on that week’s visit. In one example, 70 customers took up the restaurant on the promotion. These customers were emailed an offer to spend $8 more than they had in the past 90 days. Those 70 customers had a spending bump of $991.14, or $14.15 per order. There was no discount offered—just double points in exchange for them spending $8 more, and they ended up exceeding that. After their food cost, that’s $693 in incremental profit. Plus, this goes along with point No. 1. These customers had to buy something they usually do not buy, like an appetizer or dessert, and approximately one-third of these customers continue to purchase that item on future visits, increasing average customer spend by $4.13.
Intensive Staff Training
Erin Schultz, marketing director, Spinato’s Pizzeria & Family Kitchen, Tempe, AZ (six locations)
We implemented a vast bar education program for our staff in 2023. All servers and bartenders attended a beer education, a liquor education and a wine education class. In addition, we offered 15 opportunities throughout the year to tour local breweries, distilleries and wineries. The sole purpose for this education was for our staff to feel comfortable and knowledgeable when pairing, suggesting or upselling any beer, liquor or wine item from our bar. This accomplished a few things:
- It doubled down on our choice to move to primarily local products.
- Our team was inspired to be more invested and curious with the bar menu, and they were excited about these local products.
- Our staff was more confident when suggesting and pairing these items, with a significant increase of sales in the first six months after implementing this education program.
- It helped educate the guests and gave brand awareness and community support to local vendors.
- It gave our company a more solid standing to be able to later implement beer pairings and wine pairings in the future.
We also have a training team of five people, all with different focuses, and each restaurant has a certified trainer that works to continue to educate the staff at that location. This includes implementing incentive programs for upselling a variety of items, and staff engagement to keep upselling fun, like Bingo and contests.
Tailor-Made Suggestions
Vicki Dunn-Marshall, CEO, The VDM Management Group (Little Caesars franchisee), Barboursville, WV
Keeping the guest’s needs first leads to brand loyalty and repeat business. And, if done well, upselling can help restaurant brands increase profit margins significantly—especially with side items that don’t cost as much for the restaurant.
For online and mobile app orders, the best way to upsell is by having visuals with limited messaging displayed during the checkout process that feature some of your best performing and fan-favorite add-ons. Pop-ups can be used to drive attention to limited-time offers as well—especially tied to special occasions such as football games, when consumers are inclined to make bigger purchases than during the regular weekday. Bundled offers can be another technique to upsell, providing greater value to each meal.
For in-store service, cater each suggestion based on what the guest is ordering. Not all recommendations will fit the needs or preferences of all guests. This can be done immediately after the guest orders pizza and before they’re done checking out. The way you deliver that recommendation is just as important—being conversational and making it about the consumer and how this is to their benefit, not that of the restaurant.
Training is the most important aspect of getting employees to understand how to upsell and to ensure that they see the value in doing so. The intent always has to be about the guest’s needs. This may include educating staff on ways to enhance their customer service skills and learning how to engage with guests. The ultimate goal is to know what other menu offerings would go well with the guest’s order. Having a clear understanding of the restaurant’s menu is key for success—ensuring we’re not just order takers but customer service experts. We have store contests and rankings on products to create engagement.
Knowledge is power, and details matter. Leverage the data that mobile apps and online orders gather from each transaction to get to know your guests. Pay close attention to how orders and preferences might shift depending on the time of day, week, etc., to make the right suggestion. It’ll also give you an inside look into how to modify the messaging you use for each user—families versus individuals, for instance.
Understand how a side item can enhance the order your guest has already built. Learning consumers’ behavior and order patterns can help you and your staff make the right recommendations that have the guest’s best interest at heart.
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s associate editor.
