Customer Experience - What do your customers want from you anyway?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Heim on March 2, 2009 at 4:13pm

What's your winery's story? Is it compelling and unique? How are you telling it? Can your customers visualize themselves in this story? Can they make it their own story?

Patagonia clothing company is a nice case study. Patagonia makes and sells casual and rugged outdoor clothing, but what they're really selling is a great story - one that customers can make their own. This story allows Patagonia to sell their clothes for much more than competitors, build a growing and enthusiastic customer base, all while they outsell and out profit their competitors.

Note to group members: It would be great to see some of you get involved by commenting on this.

Permalink Reply by Friday Monkey Wines on October 24, 2009 at 9:15am

The Friday Monkey name was chosen with the purpose of gaining immediate brand recognition. Friday is the best trading day of the week for liquor sales in the United States. USA and UK are our focus. The sight of a cute monkey swinging on a vine is one which delights people of all ages. Combined on a wine label, they present a whimsical image which is readily noticed with irresistible appeal to the impulse buyer. Its name is easily remembered and describes the contemporary personality of the wine. It also conveys a feel good factor while making a purchase decision in the store. Last and not the least, it will boost retailers’ wine sales without them doing any hand selling.

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Permalink Reply by John Heim on March 20, 2009 at 10:32am

What are you doing to turn your customers into your greatest marketing asset? Why would customers want to become evangelists for your winery/wine, when there are so many good wines to choose from?

Permalink Reply by Katie McDonald on April 1, 2009 at 8:57am

I just started in the industry and this will be my first opportunity to tackle during and after our summer season...I think finding advocates and letting them work for you is an essential, almost free tool and I have some basic ideas as to get this rolling....like sales lead generation etc...but would love to hear any experiences you seasoned professionals may have!

Thanks

Permalink Reply by kent higginbotham on April 17, 2009 at 11:45am

John,

I think first the experience needs to be a personal one! We all have good wines, what is going to make us different from the next winery? Walking them to their car, greeting them at the door. Talking less about winespeak and tasting notes and more about them and who they are and how their experience is going.

Permalink Reply by Martin Barrett on September 15, 2009 at 7:00pm

John what do you think are the hot buttons for customers to become evangelists?

Permalink Reply by kent higginbotham on April 17, 2009 at 12:53pm

I agree 100% John! That is why I am a fan of the Social Media Marketing! Take the time to meet and know them and more than likely they will ask you to sell to them.

Permalink Reply by David Gaier on August 12, 2009 at 9:14am

There are some basic principles at work here, too, that don't require an exhaustive knowledge of, or fluency using social media, web design, or even public relations or marketing.

The most basic of these is that the key to success is smart, enthusiastic, pleasant, and well-informed people on your front lines, dealing with potential customers and turning them into long-term customers. And that a great – or merely successful – winery has standards and processes in place to ensure a consistent level of quality, service and attention to people, especially in the tasting room, its “ambassador” to the wine-drinking world.

I visited a local winery recently over a holiday weekend; I went on that particular day because the winery had very aggressively pushed the day's festivities, which included BYOF picnicking, a jazz band and tours - it's a very nice property.

Anyway, I went into the sales room (separate from the tasting room) to purchase a bottle of their sparkling wine…and it was actually pretty good. But the salesperson couldn’t even tell me what grapes were in it (I like Chard-based, but was looking for a Blanc de Noir-style made from PN). Nor could she give me an address for the winery that any GPS would take, so that I could direct a group of friends from Pennsylvania. Remarkably, many of the wines in the direct-sales area weren’t marked, and she couldn’t tell me the prices of quite a few. Summing up, I don’t think she was the person to be working in a tasting room on a busy holiday weekend…or any other day, frankly.

On to the tasting room itself. When my party, after getting lost, finally found their way to the winery, I had already paid for their tastings and was waiting. The price was an inexpensive $5 pp which also included a logo glass; unfortunately, it was one of those shallow, thick-lipped glasses that makes it pretty much impossible to sniff and swirl. But this proved not to be a problem, as the pours, tightly controlled with those clever auto-stoppers used mostly in bars, were so miniscule as to literally make me laugh out loud. Seriously, the stoppers were set to give what I estimate to be 1/3 the average winery tasting pour, which isn’t exactly a deluge to begin with. And on my first pour, the tasting room employee literally missed my glass, and I ended up with perhaps 5 drops of their white blend in my glass. I looked at the glass and back at the employee, who made no move to give me even, well, five more drops. And so it went. I asked questions about the wines, and the staff, while pleasant, were preoccupied with talking among themselves They knew slightly more about the wines (admittedly there were at least 16) but were not enthusiastic in the least, did not even suggest I buy a bottle or tell me about any specials, discounts or the wine club, and were mostly looking at their watches (we were there about an hour before closing).

The context of this is that I emailed the owner to let him know how things were. I figured at worst he’d say that he knows he needs to do some training and thanks for the heads-up. Instead, I got a rather unpleasant, defensive response, saying he was just a “simple farmer” and that I could hardly expect the winery to be properly staffed on a holiday weekend. A holiday weekend that the winery had promoted with an email carpet-bomb!

A winery is a farm, true, at least if owns vineyards. But it’s first and foremost a hospitality business. And if you’re not hospitable, well…

Permalink Reply by Richard Beaudin on August 18, 2009 at 11:07am

Have to agree. Social media is a great tool to get the word out and hopefully drive people to the winery. However, the benefit is completely lost if there is a bad experience in the tasting room. Two years ago I stayed a few nights in Sonoma. Heading north towards Santa Rosa, I decided to stop at several of the wineries. Most I can say were cordial, informative and inviting. However, in one the tasting was defined as (don't remember the exact labels) 4 whites and two reds. Since my wife and I are much more partial to reds, I made the mistake of asking whether there might be some additonal reds that could be substitued for the whites (sounds crazy but every other winery I visited had absolutely no problem making the substitution). I was told a simply "no" and the person behind the tasting bar simply walked away! (Contrast this with arriving late for an event at Arrowood, where they apologized that the event was just about over but did offer a free pour and and invite to return the next day.. which I did, and found the person behind the bar to be very knowledgeable, cordial and a pleasure to talk to). Now back to the first winery: upon returning home from the trip I wrote an email explaining what had happened - not to chastise, but more to make them aware that they are turning people away - to this day I have never had a response to the email. Again, contrast this to a note I sent to Arrowood - Dick Arrowood personally responded. Now who's wine do you think I seek out and what wine do I refuse to buy??

Permalink Reply by Patricia Appelquist on August 16, 2009 at 6:00pm

As a customer I want knowledge first and foremost maybe because I am a snob but, when I go to a winery for passport weekend if the "cute cousin" is there and she doesn't know a Syrah from a Shiraz I most likely won't be going back to that winery. The second thing I want is respect, I know the economy is difficult but, don't insult my pocketbook with 2 for 1 offers that are less than they are for example glassware is great but I rather get wine.
Lastly, do not bombard me with your promotions, once a week is tedious but, I appreciate thoughtful once a month emails that are personalized. Is it too much to ask that you know I like Merlot and Music series over the Grape Stomp events?

For my part, I will literary Yelp.com, Blog, Facebook friend, and twitter you till I am purple too...you might call it advocacy I call it telling my friends about a great place/winery to go.

Permalink Reply by Carolyn Carswell on September 4, 2009 at 1:36am

It is always important to ask you customer, what they normally drink. Then you can guage what sort of wines you have in your portfolio which will appeal to them.
If the customer is a novice wine drinker - it is very important not to intimidate them with all your knowledge, but to taper the information you have to help them to understand a little bit about why there is this percieved enigma around wine. I always give a little demonstration on how to taste wine, so that they feel comfortable with the tasting process, and then then explain very simply what they should look out for while tasting, and how to identify a good wine - which of course is always the wine the they enjoy most. Most novice tasters are usually so happy when they are able to identify a taste or a flavour in the wine, as this is usually a mystery to them.
Of course if you are tasting with a person who has good knbowledge of wines, then it is wonderful to explore your wines together with them - and to acknowledge that they know their wine. Once you have this confidence in a wine customer - they will come back to you and bring others to experience what they did while tasting wines in your wine centre.

Permalink Reply by Mark T. Norman on October 7, 2009 at 6:10am

The truth of the matter is that consumers are TIRED of being sold...watch TV...not as a marketing person but as a consumer would...in an hour long TV show you are getting almost 25 minutes of commercials...go onto Twitter and nearly everything that is being posted are "TV like commercials"....I have seen some excellent videos from some wineries but you have to discover them by accident...John and others here make reference to engaging consumers (so that they eventually become customers)...and whether you engage them at the tasting rooms or online wineries you need to build "relationships" first!!!

Back in the day, whenever I was involved with a business networking group (the predecessor to social networking) you would watch "newcomers" greet members on their first day....if they started asking for business then you knew they were dead. Folks it is no different here on the social media sites.

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