Upselling responsibly after an incident
For account managers, customer success managers, virtual CIOs and service delivery managers at managed service providers (MSPs) and other B2B service companies. Prerequisite: 'Renewals, retention and expansion', which covers expansion that serves the customer. 'Complaint recovery' and 'Running blameless post-incident reviews' are useful companions. This course covers the commercial conversation after a service incident: separating what the customer is owed from what they might choose to buy, testing whether a recommendation really comes from the incident review, choosing timing that doesn't exploit stress, writing substantiated options with the risk each leaves, and handling a 'no'. Your contract, service-credit process and approval limits govern. UK (CMA) and US (FTC) guidance is used as an example of fairness and substantiation principles; it mainly covers consumers, and this course is not legal advice.
- Level
- Intermediate
- Length
- About 90 minutes
- Contents
- 5 lessons · final exam
- Status
- Published · updated 10 Oct 2026
Skills you'll practise
- Identify what the customer is owed after an incident, from the contract and the incident review, before any sales conversation
- Distinguish a legitimate improvement the incident revealed from an opportunistic upsell
- Choose the timing and channel of a post-incident recommendation so it doesn't exploit the customer's stress or your position of power
- Write a post-incident recommendation with substantiated claims, options including doing nothing, costs and residual risk
- Respond to a customer's objection or 'no' after an incident without pressure, and record the decision
Course outline
- 1.Identifying what the customer is owed after an incidentLesson · 18 min
- 2.Distinguishing a legitimate improvement from an opportunistic upsellLesson · 18 min
- 3.Choosing the timing and channel of a post-incident recommendationLesson · 16 min
- 4.Writing a post-incident recommendation with substantiated claims, options and residual riskLesson · 20 min
- 5.Responding to objections or a 'no' after an incident and recording the decisionLesson · 12 min
- 6.Upselling responsibly after an incident: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 14 questions
- 7.Upselling responsibly after an incident: practical exerciseKnowledge check · 1 question
- 8.Final exam10 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out
Sources it draws on
The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.
- Atlassian: Incident postmortems (incident management guide)
- Atlassian: Incident communication best practices (incident management guide)
- CMA: Unfair commercial practices (CMA207), guidance on the DMCC Act 2024 consumer protection provisions (UK example)
- FTC: Advertising FAQ's: A Guide for Small Business (US example)
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