Duty free and onboard sales: the crew who are good at it, the crew who hate it, and the secret of the number one
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#1 Ryanair number one and I have said in other threads that the crew who sell well are the ones who say the pay is fine. Here is the how, because it is a skill and it is teachable and nobody teaches it.
The two kinds of crew
The ones who push the trolley with their eyes down and say 'anything from the trolley' and are surprised when nobody buys. And the ones who make a comment to each row, look at the passengers, and sell three times as much for the same walk. The difference is not personality. It is technique.
The technique
Eye contact with the row, not the trolley. A sentence, not a question: 'the sandwiches are actually good today' or 'the coffee is fresh, we just made it'. A specific product, not a menu: people cannot choose from forty things, they can say yes to one. The children: a parent will buy the child a snack when they will not buy themselves one. The timing: the first trolley run after take off sells, the one during the descent does not. And the smile, which is not a fake smile, it is the smile of someone who genuinely thinks the coffee is fine.
The duty free
Different skill. The perfume and the gift sets sell on the return sectors, not the outbound. The scratch cards sell with a story ('someone won on the Thursday flight last week'). The alcohol sells to the stag do and not to anyone else. And the announcement: the PA about the duty free done with enthusiasm sells, done in a monotone does not.
The secret of the number one
The number one sets the tone. If I do the PA with energy and push the first trolley myself with the technique, the crew copy it and the flight sells. If I do it flat, the flight is flat. The commission is shared on some airlines and individual on others, and either way, the number one's energy is the multiplier.
For the crew who hate it
I understand. It feels like a shop. It is a shop. It is also 200 to 350 euros a month for me, and the difference between the crew who resent it and the crew who do it is about 150 euros a month and a lot of mood. Do it well and resent it less.
What works at your airline?
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#2 Dublin number one, and the 'specific product, not a menu' point is the whole technique. 'Would you like anything' sells nothing. 'The bacon roll is hot' sells six rows.
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#3 easyJet, and our commission is smaller and the technique is the same. The child snack trick is real and slightly wicked and I use it.
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#4 Wizz, and the scratch card story is the thing that works and it is a story every time and it is not lying, someone did win on the Thursday flight, probably.
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#5 TUI long haul, and the duty free on the return from Cancún is a different animal: everyone has money left and guilt about the tan and the gift sets go. The PA with energy on the return sector is the most lucrative two minutes of the month.
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#6 @kirstywings the return sector guilt is a market and you are right to serve it.
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#7 Viva, and the six sector day means six trolley runs and the technique matters more because the energy runs out by sector four. The crew who sell on sector six are the ones who ate on sector three. Fuel is technique too.