Thread: The Defintion of Cross Sales

I asked Claudio who runs IntegrationMind if i could post one of his articles which i think are very well written.

This one is about Cross Sales:




Though there are few ethical issues with most cross selling, in some cases they can be huge. Arthur Andersen's dealings with Enron provide a highly visible example. It is commonly felt that the firm's objectivity, being an auditor, has been compromised by selling internal audit services and massive amounts of consulting work to the account.

Though most companies want more cross-selling, there can be substantial barriers, including:

1. A customer policy requiring the use of multiple vendors.
2. Different purchasing points within an account, which reduce the ability to treat the customer like a single account.
3. The fear of the incumbent business unit that their colleagues would botch their work at the client, resulting with the loss of the account for all units of the firm.

Broadly speaking, cross-selling takes three forms. First, while servicing an account, the product or service provider may hear of an additional need, unrelated to the first, that the client has and offer to meet it. Thus, for example, in conducting an audit, an accountant is likely to learn about a range of needs for tax services, for valuation services and others. To the degree that regulations allow, the accounts may be able to sell services that meet these needs. This kind of cross-selling helped major accounting firms to expand their businesses considerably. Because of the potential for abuse, this kind of selling by auditors has been greatly curtailed under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Selling add-on services is another form of cross-selling. This happens when a supplier shows a customer that it can enhance the value of its service by buying another from a different part of the supplier's company. When you buy an appliance, the salesperson will offer to sell you insurance beyond the terms of the warranty. Though common, this kind of cross-selling can leave a customer feeling poorly used. The customer might well ask the appliance salesperson why he needs insurance on a brand new refrigerator. Is it really likely to break in just nine months?

The third kind of cross-selling can be called selling a solution. In this case, the customer buying air conditioners is sold a package of both the air conditioners and installation services. The customer can be considered buying relief from the heat, contrary to just air conditioners.


For more information visit IntegrationMind

Originally Posted by nyllover

Good explanation BUT let's add one thing: when someone offers a cross sale, he should make the customer well aware of this.
In A LOT of cases, the cross sale is in a form of a tiny small checkbox selected by default and, moreover, when the user cancel the main subscription the other one doesn't get unsubscribed.

So, in my opinion, cross sale is good ONLY if it's to offer something that the customer wants, not if it's only to increase money.

Just my 2 cents...

This comment is pure like the ass of a baby

Cross sales will never be like you described , there is a reason why they are not well explained and clients are not made clearly aware of it.