Follow Up Makes You Fabulous
You’ve closed the sale. Your guests had a great time visiting. Think you’re done? Your job isn’t finished yet! To ensure your guests think you’re the most fabulous host and/or winery in the world, employ a touch of follow up to reinforce the sale.
After the Sale
Once the purchase has been made, your follow up will make you fabulous in the eyes of your guests with a few, simple actions:
Click on any “ + “ to view the suggested reply to these objection.
In short, it’s important to reinforce your customer’s buying decision. Affirm guests’ buying choices every time they buy, and congratulate them as new club members. Just as we’re not always 100% certain of our decision to buy the red dress at a clothing store, guests may have mixed feelings about a wine purchase.
Extend Your Hospitality
In addition to what you say once the purchase is made, make a physical production of the “wrap up” by walking out from behind your counter and presenting the purchase to your guest. Here’s a tip from Nordstrom, a retail chain famous for brand loyalty and customer service: “Salespeople are taught to walk the bagged purchase around the counter to the customer, rather than just handing it across the counter.”
Do your physical surroundings and level of busy-ness permit you to walk your guests to their car? Review your options with your tasting room manager and other hospitality staff to determine what final hospitality you can offer as guests depart.
Leave your guests on a high note by saying, “Do keep your wine list so that when you get home, you can remember the ones you liked the best. And, don’t hesitate to call me and I’ll have it shipped right out!”
When people have a good experience at your winery they will tell up to 5 people. When they have negative experiences, they will tell 15 or more people.
Good-bye and Thank You Follow Up
Taking the time to send an email or a note to your guests can pay off. You’ll be surprised by how impressed, even touched, people can be when, after they arrive home, they receive a nice note of thanks. I treasure the personal notes I received from the hosts at Brooks Wine in Oregon and Castoro Cellars in Paso Robles.
The most successful and well-liked winery sales professionals cultivate the customer connection and ensure future sales with phone calls, emails and notes in the mail; and, those are the customers who are most apt to tell their friends about their special treatment. (Not everyone will want to share their contact information and you don’t want to alienate them. Try just asking for a business card! You may need to explain that there’s a difference between providing their email for the mailing/club list and giving it to you for personal connection.)
I know that you go the extra mile for your guests and for your winery every day, and on some days, it may hard to come up with that sprinkle of pixie dust that makes every guest experience just perfect. So, I hope my advice and techniques will help you get more enjoyment and satisfaction out of representing your winery.
When you have waved your magic wand and created once-in-a-lifetime experiences for your visitors, every time they see your label on a wine list and every time they return to your corner of the world, your winery will be on their minds. Thanks to you, they will always think of your winery as “their” winery.
After Guests Depart
Once your guests depart the tasting room, ask yourself:
- What did I learn about them?
- Where are they from?
- How did they find us?
- Did I get their contact information?
- What were their favorite wines?
- What details about them did I learn: work, family, personality, other?
Many wineries’ CRM (customer relationship manager) systems provide open fields to populate the above data. Your marketing department would likely greatly appreciate your personal insights on this information and overall impressions about what went well during their experience (and where improvements can be made). Share your constructive feedback whenever possible.
Cementing the Relationship Sales Success Series Skills
This online course isn’t going to immediately change how you present and sell wine at your tasting room or at winery events. We are creatures of habit. Therefore, it takes time to sow the seeds for new habits to grow and flourish, i.e. Practice! Practice! Practice!
Rehearse New Verbiage
When you begin using new techniques and new vocabulary to become more successful at relationship sales, it will feel awkward at first. Stay focused on retraining yourself to use the new skills and techniques taught in this course. Experiment with rehearsing new vocabulary with other winery staff; it will become more natural to you with repetition.
Notes and Notecards
For lasting results and huge success as a brand ambassador and hospitality professional, make notes on the best ideas, tips and suggestions you got from the course. Next, transfer each of them to a 3X5 card. With these cards as your guides, practice your newly acquired presentation skills, vocabulary, and friendly, welcoming demeanor!
Purchase Romancing the Grape or Attend My Workshop
Looking for further reinforcement of these lessons? Purchase my Romancing the Grape book in which you can make notes throughout the pages. Or, attend one of my Winery Hospitality Sales Training workshops in Napa or Sonoma. (They’re also available as in-house training, customized to your winery.) The hands-on workshop provides many opportunities to practice your new skills as well as share ideas and tips with hospitality sales professionals from other wineries.
If you are willing to take the time to absorb and take ownership of the selling and relationship fundamentals in this course, you will see significant benefits. Your selling skills will improve greatly, as will your confidence, and your enjoyment of dealing with people in all areas of your life. Make it work for you and have fun with it. Remember, establishing a new habit (or breaking an old one) takes at least twenty-one days. Let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear from you.
This article is part of the email Relationship Sales Success Series. It provides a step-by-step guide to improving wine sales and wine club sign ups. While it focuses upon techniques for those working winery tasting rooms, the principles of great sales skills can apply to any industry. Sign up for the series here.
