Cindy Ferrie
Working in a tasting room can be a lot of fun. Each day you get to meet a lot of great people, educate and delight them with wine!
Your tasting room staff is the face of your winery. Customer satisfaction is primarily determined by the tasting room experience. Tasting room visitors are not solely interested in the wine. Ultimately, visitors are looking for a great overall experience. Ideally, your tasting room staff should have the ability to educate, entertain, and promote your brand. This role calls for the ability to juggle priorities. A normal day includes serving wine, working the floor, and “shooting the bull” with guests, and best of all giving tours to wine loving fans.
The best place to create brand ambassadors is in your tasting room.
Here are 10 things every winery with a tasting room should consider:
- Is your staff trained to acknowledge visitors the minute they arrive or too busy washing glasses?
- Is your tasting room passionate about what they do, excited about your wines and enjoy sharing their wine knowledge with those around them?
- Does your winery’s commitment to customer service assure that visitors will receive a great experience in a fun environment from every one of your staff?
- Are your tasting room team members both Hospitality Ambassadors AND Inside Sales Reps.
- Is your tasting room experience as enjoyable as the wines themselves?
- Does your tasting room staff know your winery’s unique story?
- Does your staff demonstrate enthusiasm for your wines?
- Does your staff ask leading questions, like, “Have you tried our wines before?” “How did you hear about us?” “Where are you visiting from?” “What kind of wines do you like?”
- Does your staff do daily Facebook posts with your winery’s voice with the mood and a photo of the day? Do you Tweet your daily wine line-up?
- Are you tracking new daily visitors, buyers, sales, club signups, email subscribers and customer feedback?
Educated visitors feel closer to your brand, which can foster brand ambassadors. When your staff provide a great experience, your guests are much more likely to share their experience with their friends, families and colleagues. When you create a memorable experience in the tasting room, you create an opportunity for guests to re-live memories and enjoy wine at home. A great guest experience also encourages customers to purchase more wine.
Tasting room experiences done right, see new wine club signups.
- Does your staff promote the wine club, and enjoy this kind of visitor interaction?
- Does your staff weave into their conversation the benefits of joining your wine club?
- Does your price list include regular and “wine club member only” wines?
- Have you reserved top benefits for your committed wine club members – keep them special.
- Do you promote the exclusivity of your wine club? Have you designated a special roped off VIP area, do you offer guided special tours that are exclusive to your wine club members?
- Are the benefits of your wine club and the sign-up strategically placed throughout your tasting room?
Successful wineries start by inspiring passion in their tasting room staff. Your tasting room staff needs to know your unique story and have your wine information down pat. The more you get them involved with your winery, the better they can create a great experience.
Tasting room training provides your staff with the resources they need to become a skilled, motivated and enthusiastic sales team. During tasting room training, your staff will learn how to:
- Engage with guests.
- Collect email addresses- try for 75%!
- How to weave the benefits of the wine club membership throughout the conversation.
Training will transform your tasting room. Your staff will become friendlier, create a better guest experience and sell more and your winery will be more profitable. In addition, most wineries will see immediate results:
- More email addresses
- Increased bottle and case sales
- More wine club memberships.
Help raise the bar for your guests’ experience when they visit! When your staff members are successful in fully engaging your customers, they can gently educate about your wines and winery as part of the conversation. This approach converts your customers into passionate brand ambassadors. And you sell more wine and wine club memberships!
Cindy Ferrie is a trusted marketing advisor to wineries seeking to build direct-to-consumer sales and ecommerce capabilities. To find out more on custom tasting room training sessions please call Cindy at 604-561-5480 or visit www.cindyferrie.com
