An area which companies do not focus enough attention on, yet is just as important as the offer, is the upsells.  Most companies focus on customer acquisition, because it determines the viability of a campaign, but it’s the back-end of a successful campaign that truly determines your bottom line.  Optimizing the back-end can be the single most important aspect to increase a company’s profitability.  The back-end is broken into two parts.  The first consists of the upsells (to the TV product) offered during the IVR/web order.  The customer is calling because he/she is excited about the TV offer; therefore, sell her more of what she wants.  Deluxe versions typically work best, then offer additionals at a discount with free shipping. The upsells should be extremely well connected to the initial TV offer.  Continuities can be very successful in the upsell stream of collectible products.  A well-designed continuity can receive 25% response and can account for 50% of your overall RPO (revenue per order), depending on the offer and it’s location in the upsell stream.  Continuities typically do not lend themselves to low priced, mass-market products.

The target RPO from a $10 TV offer should be about $60, much higher than that will likely cause significant problems with credit card charge back and returns.  Each upsell takes away from the response of future upsell offers as the customer’s attention span wanes; too many upsells causes the IVR length to lengthen unacceptably.  I have listened to IVRs that can run 18 minutes.  This causes significant frustrations for the customer and can easily lead to customer input errors that again lead to increased charge backs and returns.  It is important to A/B test upsell position order as well as price points to optimize your upsell stream.