Upselling vs Overselling: A Guide for the Restaurant Server

As a server, you might be expected to up sell to restaurant guests. Most guests don't mind their server trying to up sell them, it gives them a chance to try something that they might have otherwise not have even glanced at in the menu. Your best shot at up selling is if and when a guest asks your opinion on what to order. The most important thing to remember is that you only want to up sell, not over sell.

What is the difference between up selling and over selling? A good example of up selling would be recommending a certain entrée you found to be desirable at the request of the guest, or perhaps serving them their entrees and returning minutes later to recommend a wine that goes wonderful with the meal, and of course have the wine with you. Now what is over selling, I'm sure you have already guessed. Over selling is when you not only recommend an entrée, but perhaps and appetizer, and a dessert, and an expensive wine to go with dinner, and perhaps you even pushed for coffee to go with dessert.

Okay, so you now know the difference and you might even be thinking, 'hey, isn't that good for the restaurant, that was a huge profit from that one table.' Sure, it was good for the restaurant, for that one time. In most cases if you try up selling a table so much, like in my example in the above paragraph, the guest is going to end up empting their wallet at your restaurant that they probably won't return. The amount of money won't be the only reason they don't return. The people at this table were probably expecting to go out for a nice, affordable, and relaxing meal. Instead they get pestered by the waiter/waitress every course, with the outcome of a very expensive bill.

Now, that you understand how over selling can hurt the restaurant, even though it may help just that once, let me explain how up selling can profit the restaurant. Up selling is best if used maybe once or twice per table, not ten times per table. The benefit of up selling is that you may only be adding an extra ten dollars to a bill per table, but if the guests enjoyed themselves they may return, and spend an extra ten dollars, every time they come to the restaurant. So as you have probably concluded yourself it may be nice to have a table spend an extra thirty dollars compared to an extra ten dollars, but who is most likely to return the restaurant and give a larger profit in the long run?