Short answer
Suggestion selling (also called suggestive selling) is recommending an additional or better item to a customer at the moment they're buying: a related product, an accessory, a service or an upgrade. It covers both cross-sells and upsells. In B2B it happens on quotes, reorders, ordering portals and service visits, and it's measured by the attach rate: orders that include the suggested item ÷ orders of the item it was suggested with.
- Suggestion selling is the act of recommending at the point of purchase; the result can be a cross-sell or an upsell.
- Suggest what this purchase needs to work, not your bestseller.
- Measure attach rate against a control group, or you'll credit sales that would have happened anyway.
- In a 2013 experiment, a pitch tacked onto the end of a friendly encounter lowered intention to buy more.
On this page
This page is for B2B sellers who quote, take orders or visit customers: distributor and inside sales reps, account managers, field service teams and anyone running a B2B ordering portal. It defines suggestion selling, separates it from upselling and cross-selling, summarizes what research shows and works through how to measure it.
What suggestion selling means
Suggestion selling is recommending something extra at the moment of purchase. The customer has already decided to buy; the seller points out what goes with it or what would serve them better.
| Setting | The purchase | The suggestion | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial distributor quote | 200 cutting discs | Cut-resistant gloves for the crew using them | Cross-sell |
| Software renewal | 25 seats, standard support | A higher support tier, since the customer logged 40 tickets last year | Upsell |
| Office supply reorder portal | Printer toner | The matching drum unit, due at the same page count | Cross-sell |
| HVAC service visit | Repair of a failed compressor | A maintenance agreement for the other units on the roof | Cross-sell |
| Equipment purchase | A forklift | Operator training and an extended warranty | Cross-sell |
The term is most familiar from retail and restaurants ("would you like fries with that?"), but the B2B version is often more valuable, because the suggestion can prevent a second order, a second delivery or a failure on site.
Suggestion selling vs upselling vs cross-selling
| Term | What it describes | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Suggestion selling | The act of recommending at the point of purchase | "Most crews order gloves rated for these discs. Shall I add a box?" |
| Upselling | Selling a bigger or better version of the same thing | 40 seats on a higher tier instead of 25 on the standard one |
| Cross-selling | Selling a different, complementary product | A maintenance contract added to a repair |
Suggestion selling is a technique; upselling and cross-selling are outcomes. A suggestion that leads to a higher tier is an upsell, and one that adds a related product is a cross-sell. Cross-selling and upselling can also happen well after a purchase, for example at a quarterly review, while suggestion selling happens while the customer is buying.
What research shows
Timing and relevance matter. Magnus Söderlund of the Stockholm School of Economics ran an experiment, published in 2013, in which a customer contact person was friendly throughout a service encounter and then, at the end, made no suggestion, a suggestion that fitted the encounter or one that didn't. Customers' intentions to buy additional products were lower in both suggestion conditions than with no suggestion. The author's explanation is a contrast effect: a sales pitch at the end may "break the spell" of the friendly encounter before it. The suggestion that didn't fit also hurt customers' attitude toward the person; the one that fitted mostly didn't. The lesson for B2B: a relevant suggestion made as part of solving the customer's problem fits; a pitch tacked on at the end doesn't.
Related beats popular. Amazon's recommendation system, described in a 2003 IEEE Internet Computing paper by Greg Linden, Brent Smith and Jeremy York, is suggestion selling at scale. Amazon's own history of the algorithm (2019) explains that it treats item B as related to item A when customers who buy A are "unusually likely" to buy B, compared with customers in general. A simple count of what's bought together would just recommend bestsellers to everyone. The same rule works for a sales rep: suggest the item that this purchase makes more likely, not the item you sell most of.
How to measure suggestion selling
The core metric is the attach rate:
Attach rate = orders that include the suggested item ÷ orders that include the item it's suggested with
The trap is that some customers would have bought the suggested item anyway. To find what the suggestion added, compare against orders where no suggestion was made.
Illustrative example. The company and figures are invented to show the arithmetic.
Corbel Supply (corbelsupply.example), an industrial distributor, wants to know whether reps should suggest gloves on every order of cutting discs. Over a quarter it takes 1,200 such orders. Reps suggest gloves on 600 of them and say nothing on the other 600.
| With suggestion | No suggestion | |
|---|---|---|
| Orders of cutting discs | 600 | 600 |
| Orders that also included gloves | 108 | 42 |
| Attach rate | 18% | 7% |
- Without a control, Corbel would credit all 108 glove orders to the suggestion.
- The suggestion added 18% minus 7% = 11 percentage points, or 600 × 11% = 66 extra glove orders.
- At an average glove line of $24, that's 66 × $24 = $1,584 of extra revenue a quarter, and at a 35% margin, $554 of extra gross profit, from one sentence on each order.
- If reps make the suggestion on all 1,200 orders, the expected gain doubles to 132 extra orders a quarter.
Track average order value and returns of the suggested item too. A high attach rate with a high return rate means customers were talked into something they didn't need.
How to do it well
- Suggest from the customer's job. Ask what the purchase is for, then suggest what makes it work: the consumable it needs, the part that fails next, the training the operator will need.
- Make one suggestion and say why. "Crews using these discs usually need gloves rated for them" is a reason; a list of five extras is noise.
- Pick the moment. Quotes, reorders, renewals and the end of a service visit are natural. A suggestion in the middle of fixing a complaint isn't.
- Make no easy. Never pre-check extras on a quote or portal. A customer who finds an item they didn't agree to stops trusting the invoice.
- Write down what works. Keep a short list of the pairs with the highest incremental attach rate, and give it to new reps and to whoever runs the ordering portal.
At account level, the best suggestions come from knowing what's changing at the customer: a new site, a new line, a new team. Bebop researches each account and writes a playbook with what's happening at the company, so you know which suggestion fits before the order comes in.
Common mistakes
- Suggesting your bestseller. Popular isn't the same as related to this purchase.
- Saving the pitch for the end. Make it part of solving the problem, not an add-on after it.
- Measuring without a control. You'll overstate the effect and keep suggestions that don't work.
- Ignoring returns and complaints. They're the cost side of the attach rate.
Next step: see how suggestions turn into larger accounts over time in upselling.
Sources
- Positive social behaviors and suggestive selling in the same service encounter, Managing Service Quality, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 305 to 320 (Emerald), 4 July 2013
- The history of Amazon's recommendation algorithm, Amazon Science, 22 November 2019
Written by the Bebop team at Blackpearl Group. Published .
Questions people ask
What is suggestion selling?
Suggestion selling, also called suggestive selling, is recommending an additional or better item to a customer while they're buying. The suggestion might be a related product, an accessory, a service, training or an upgrade. It's a technique rather than an outcome: a suggestion that adds a complementary product is a cross-sell, and one that moves the customer to a better version is an upsell.
What is the difference between upselling and suggestive selling?
Suggestive selling is the act of recommending something at the point of purchase. Upselling is one possible result: the customer buys a bigger or better version of the same thing, such as a higher software tier. A suggestion can also produce a cross-sell, a different product that goes with the first. Upselling can happen long after the purchase, while suggestive selling happens during it.
What is an example of suggestion selling in B2B?
An industrial distributor's rep taking an order for 200 cutting discs says that crews using them usually need gloves rated for the discs, and offers to add a box. Other B2B examples: suggesting the matching drum unit with a toner reorder, a maintenance agreement after a repair visit, operator training with an equipment purchase, or a higher support tier at a software renewal when ticket volume has been high.
Does suggestive selling work?
It can, when the suggestion is relevant and well timed. A 2013 experiment by Magnus Söderlund found that suggestions made at the end of a friendly service encounter lowered customers' intention to buy additional products compared with no suggestion, and suggestions that didn't fit the encounter also hurt how customers saw the seller. Test your own suggestions against orders where none was made, and keep the ones that add sales without raising returns.
How do you measure suggestive selling?
Use the attach rate: orders that include the suggested item divided by orders of the item it was suggested with. Then compare it with a control group of orders where no suggestion was made, because some customers would have bought the extra anyway. The difference is what the suggestion added. Track average order value and returns of the suggested item too, so you don't reward suggestions customers later regret.