What are your plans for bringing in more customers this year? If you already have a plan, is it in writing? If not now is the time to put a plan together.
Start by talking to your staff. Ask them what their opinions on customer satisfaction are. What do your customers say that they like/love about your wines, winery, events, and employees? You may also want to ask your guests why they continue to visit, what is it that brings them back?
You may want to create a series of short questionnaires for your guests to complete. Nothing too arduous. Each questionnaire will be on a different subject, for example:
- The atmosphere of the winery
- The friendliness of the staff
- The attractiveness of the tasting room and/or what could be done to improve it
- Whether they had to wait to be served
This might be a good topic for a staff meeting. Ask your staff to keep track for a week of what their customers say to them about the winery, wines, atmosphere, etc.
Another way to get ideas may be to start a few focus groups. Invite a few of your regular customers to come to the winery and participate in a focus group, Ask the focus group to give you their ideas on the strengths and weaknesses of customer service, the look/layout of the tasting room, and how they were treated.
If the tasting room is busy, you may want to have a printed sheet that asks about the guests’ visit for the staff to give them or put it in with the wine they order either to be shipped or to take with them.
Next week we will talk about what questions you could ask your guests.
A tip of the glass from me to you!
