I was reading an article on marketing which reminded me of my professional-laze days (days when I was paid to laze around...hmm...I was a software engineer). A regional relationship manager from a big bank (not in size, but in revenues; though I do not know whether to put that in a sheet or balance it out) used to pester me.
Take this card sir, it will be with you free for the rest of your life.
Free!!! I would give my life for anything that comes free of cost. Just show me where to sign!
Sure sir! I will come with the papers tomorrow.
Least did I know that I'm about to be a value addition to the bank!
The next day he gifted me a life-time free credit card...and some add-on cards which were almost free(At just 200 per year, Sir, it's almost free) and some other stuff which did not see the light of the day (I don't even remember using my petrol pump card; I forgot that I didn't have a bike or a car or anything remote that requires petrol, when I took that). It's pretty evident...I was smoothly mainpulated into buying all these!
I didn't know that all this had a name to go by - cross-selling. You can sell ice-cream for a customer coming for a coffee; you sell bank loan to a guy who comes to buy a car and who with his money can buy you off the shop. It's an interesting phenomena. The sweetener that makes the transaction possible puts you in a tricky position. You do not realise the aftermaths until you are lured into it.
Cross-selling is a wonderful phenomena which probably is the undercurrent in all the Coffee days and the like. And even the best of minds fall prey for this small trick. Why? Think of it next time you make an unwarranted purchase.
Sir, would you like to try our new special item called rib-ticklers? Eat one and you get 20% discount on the next purchase on the shelf. And Sir, it's completely oil-free, cholesterol-free and...
Get sold and enjoy it!!!
Hi sridhar good, as usual. keep writing. All the best.
ReplyDeleteVenkata Ramana Rao