Engagement with customers is not only about what you tell them, it is also about when. If you want customers’ visits to your winery to be remembered, when you give your customers information is as important as the information you give them.
The other day I had an email from a winery asking me a couple of questions. The first was when a customer asks you, “What is your favorite wine?” what do you tell them.
My answer is that it is more important not to tell them to early in their visit. As you want them to make up their own minds.
- If you have an absolute favorite wine, they may (if they are not wine savvy) be influenced by what you think.
- Telling them too early may stop them from choosing something else that they actually like more because you are “the expert”
- It may stop them from buying other wines on your list because they think they may not be as good.
- Their tastes may be quite different from yours.
Before you give a customer any information on you preferred wine, ask them to taste the wines, decide what they like best and tell you their favorite. After they have told you what they liked the best of the wines they have tasted you can praise their palate, tell them what a great wine it is; then tell them your favorite. Followed quickly by a quick couple of sentences about why the wine they chose is an excellent wine. (Assuming or course, that the wines you make or sell are excellent).
Knowing what the customer likes allows you to give them more information and recommend food that pairs well with the wine. This gives novice wine drinkers more confidence in their own abilities to understand good wine and seasoned wine drinkers to tell you what they enjoy pairing with that particular wine.
Another question I am asked to answer for clients is, what do you do when someone asks which is your best wine. Again, before you answer the question find out what they like. Sometimes I visit wineries and notice that I am told the most expensive wine on the list. That is fine as long as you have asked some questions and know that your guests would be comfortable paying that price for a bottle of wine. If they are not, you lose the opportunity to present the wines that are closer to their price range and there goes the sale.
Ask questions, get information and then make the recommendations.
A tip of the glass from me to you
E Column
by Elizabeth “E” Slater, In Short Direct Marketing
A recognized expert in the fields of direct marketing and sales in the wine marketplace. Slater has taught more wineries and winery associations how to create and improve the effectiveness of their direct marketing programs and to make the most of each customer’s potential than anyone in the wine industry today.
Follow E on twitter @esavant and facebook.
