Part of the fun in having your own pet-care business is dreaming up new services and features you can offer your clients. Not only do these upselling and cross-selling services differentiate you from your competitors and boost your revenue, but they improve the quality of each pet’s visit.
But, what exactly is upselling, and how do you upsell customers at your pet-care business? If you’ve been caring for pets and their people for a while now, there’s a good chance you’re already utilizing some of these upselling techniques, and looking for ways to include add-on services each time a customer books a boarding, daycare, or grooming appointment with you.
For those pet-care professionals that need a quick refresh, upselling is encouraging the additional purchase of anything that would make a customer's initial purchase more expensive with an upgrade, enhancement, or premium option. In the pet-care world, this means encouraging customers to purchase a bedtime snack if their dog is staying with you. Or, if you operate a dog daycare, it could mean adding thirty minutes on the agility course as part of their regular stay.
Offering these enhanced add-on services is crucial to a pet-care business’s success because services like these help define your brand, demonstrate that you and your staff are attentive to the needs of both the owner and their pet, and give you another way to engage with your customers while offering thoughtful suggestions that can improve their pet’s experience with you.
Walks recreate every pet's favorite at-home activity while also providing socialization, exercise and some one-on-one personal attention from your staff. A walk is an easy upsell because customers instinctively know how much their dog loves going on their daytime walk. Even the word ‘walk’ or ‘walkie’ is enough to get most dogs doing their happy dance!
Try upselling a healthy banana and peanut butter treat after an energizing day in daycare. Or, go for morning doggie donuts for weekend boarding and daycare clients. Customers and pets will gobble up this upselling service!
Just because your pet-care business primarily offers kenneling, training or daycare, doesn’t mean you can’t dip your paws into the pet grooming space. Simple grooming tasks like washes, nail trims and thorough brushings can be challenging for some owners, and many will appreciate knocking off their pet’s regular grooming at the same time they’re being boarded
If you have a skilled staff that can assist you while you build out this portion of your business, you will quickly find that adding a few grooming clients each week will boost your average spend per customer and your revenue’s bottom line.
It’s worth noting that branching off into other areas of pet-care services makes it all the more important to have the right pet-care software managing your day-to-day operations, handling details like online appointments and managing client profiles.
Is there a single pet parent out there who doesn’t want to see their beloved pet being read a bedtime story before they go to bed? For so many pet parents, their dogs and cats are, quite literally, their fur babies. Offering bedtime stories is a fun way to acknowledge this connection and pay additional attention to a customer’s pet.
This add-on service is the perfect complement to a pet-care boarding business and a simple way to show you care about each pet’s comfort while in your care.
You can set up webcams in play areas, boarding suites, grooming salons and near doggie play pools.
Leaving your pet behind if you leave town, or even sending them to daycare while you’re at work, can be incredibly stressful for pet owners. If there’s one service that customers, especially boarding customers, will splurge on it’s the ability to watch their pet while they’re away, even if it is simply over a live stream.
Pet-care business owners love webcams because it helps them keep an eye on what’s going on in each room of their business, which goes a long way in keeping all of the dogs and cats in their care safe and happy.
Gingr integrates with abcKam and iDogCam, two exceptional streaming services designed especially for pet care.
If there’s one thing pet owners appreciate, it's a pet-care business that’s a one-stop shop for all of their pet’s needs, whether it's grooming, daycare, training or boarding. If your grooming business is already successful in the community, and you’ve built trust with your clients, there’s a good chance you can upsell this useful service.
The great news is that with pet-care management software like Gingr, you can track and measure which products are the most popular and which are not, and focus your upselling efforts on the ones your customers find the most useful.
Pet parents can relate to and will splurge on purchasing specialty grooming services because they feel like they’re pampering their pet, just like they would pamper themselves at a day spa or hair salon. And who doesn’t love that pampered feeling?!
Package promotions like buying five grooming sessions and receiving a complementary nail trim or conditioning treatment are automatic upsells, and they create long-term savings for your customers, while also turning them into repeat customers.
Offering upsell enhancements alone, no matter how established your pet-care business is, won’t necessarily convince customers to use these services. Pet-care businesses must also use sales techniques to sell these services to customers and demonstrate their benefits.
Here are a few upselling tips and techniques:
Selling services that benefit your customers, their pooches, and your business is a win for everyone. Upselling not only boosts your revenue by increasing your average customer spend, but you’re making your clients' experience even better — and showing just how well you understand their needs and that of their pet.
Having the right digital tools and pet-care software essentials at your fingertips allows you to track customer data and preferences to understand your customers better, making suggesting targeted add-ons and enhancements even easier.
Utilizing the best upselling techniques in your pet-care business will strengthen your business, help grow your customer base, and help people and their pets get the most out of your services!
Want to learn more about other ways to build and diversify your revenue streams while enhancing the customer experience? Dive into these additional guides: