Dunkin’ Donuts Wants Cashiers To Do More Upselling To Afternoon Customers

Are you one of the many people who pops into a Dunkin’ Donuts on your way home from work, not to buy a box of glazed chocolate Munchkins, but to get your caffeine fix? Well, get ready to have cashiers try to suggest you also purchase donuts, sandwiches and other items, because the chain’s CEO says stores aren’t doing enough upselling in the afternoon.

According to the AP, Dunkin’ Brands CEO Nigel Travis explained that the company hasn’t historically done much upselling because the busy early morning hours are not conducive to taking a few seconds to suggest other items that customers might enjoy paying for. However, in DD’s less-hectic afternoon hours, there is the time to ask a customer if he’d “like a cookie with that.”

“People tend to be in a slightly different mode in the afternoon,” explains Travis. “In the afternoon, they tend to be more relaxed.”

That’s why some stores have been adding counter displays to put additional, potentially tempting food items at the point of sale.

“It’s a way to push various items,” says Travis.

But he says that the upsell is also required because not everyone is lured in by muffins and cookies in a POS display. According to Travis — who was an exec at Papa John’s, Burger King, and Blockbuster before coming to Dunkin’ — one of his previous companies tracked the eye motions of customers waiting in line to pay. He said that customers would look up at the menu board to make their decision, but that they would then look up at the board again once they arrived at the cash register. To him, this indicates that people are still willing to change their minds at the point of sale.

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