The following blog post was written for Vin65:

When consumers interact with your brand in any way, whether it be at the vineyard on a tour, in the tasting room, the vineyard restaurant, or in your retail store, you have a responsibility to maintain a certain level of customer service. These five points will challenge you to rethink how your customers perceive your brand and how you can improve your customer service.

1 – Make Them Feel Appreciated

Think about the experience your customers get when they purchase from you. What encourages them to keep coming back to your winery as opposed to trying the new winery next door? You might think it’s the service, or the atmosphere, or the events that you hold. Perhaps it is, but do your customers know that they’re appreciated? I suggest demonstrating this in the form of a promotion on your website, or an event geared as an appreciation night. Even the smallest initiatives can make the biggest differences in how your customers feel.

2 – Exceed Expectations

Think of the times you’ve been blown away by customer service. I can bet you that the underlying theme in most of those situations has been that the business has exceeded your expectations. When you throw in something extra and give more than what’s expected, you leave your customers in awe. They’re so excited by it that they’ll remember your name, recommend you to their friends, and they’ll keep coming back over, and over, and over. It can be something as simple as a coupon for a future discount with their purchase that you haven’t advertised or maybe it’s a sincere hand-written thank you note sent out to each club member for being such loyal customers. The question to ask yourself is, “what can I give my customers that they cannot get anywhere else?”

3 – Be Personable

It’s hard to think of a business I’ve called recently that doesn’t have some sort of automated response – it’s frustrating, isn’t it? This doesn’t just apply to phone calls. When someone enters your tasting room, the attendant should be personable, not an automated machine. Try to ensure that the tasting room attendant engages in conversation with your customers rather than just pour wine and swipe credit cards. As Andrew says, don’t forget the personal service. Learning your regular customer’s first names and using them when you see them or talk to them on the phone will make them feel valued and important.

4 – “It’s My Fault”

I once read a story of a man who needed an extra set of keys for his apartment and, on his way to work, stopped at the locksmith around the corner to have keys cut. After going back to his apartment to check the new keys, one didn’t work. He returned to the locksmith where a new copy was made and when he returned home it still didn’t work. Now being 30 minutes late for work, he returns to the locksmith for a third time in a place of rage, ready to unleash his anger on the locksmith. After looking at the key again the locksmith says “ah. It’s my fault,”; and the man’s anger evaporated. Taking the blame when appropriate can make the difference between inspiring a customer and bad publicity via word-of-mouth. Keep in mind that word-of-mouth spreads much faster than it used to with the use of social media.

5 – Conduct Mystery Shops

Having mystery shops conducted on your winery is a great way to measure your quality assurance because it’s cost effective, unbiased, targeted, and the data is current and relevant. Mystery shopping is assessed by finding Customer Service Opportunities (CSO) and each industry has different areas for their CSO. For example, McDonald’s has monthly mystery shops that measure speed of service, food quality, restaurant cleanliness, order accuracy, and friendliness. The luxury hotel industry is very serious about this as well and even has a company that provides comprehensive benchmarking data from conducting audits. Companies such as In Short Direct Marketing, WISE Academy, and TexaCali Wine Co. provide mystery shopping for wineries and are worth taking a look at for the services they offer.

As we careen through 2011 and the influence of social media continues to grow, it is important to remember the potential reach that your brand has. By finding ways to impress and inspire your current customers, you not only retain their business, but you gain new customers when these inspired customers share the experience with their friends.

Now that you have new insight on how to improve customer service, what will you consider changing?

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It seems I’ve fallen behind on my blogging duties lately! I said it wouldn’t happen and here I am, in the same old predicament as before. In my defense, I am working two jobs. My record was 42 days in a row of work but then I had to do the Sun Run on April 17th so I took a couple of days off. Not that I enjoy this though – I look forward to my next opportunity to sleep in, which looks like it will be the May long weekend since I do not work early for a change, but rather late.

My new job as a customer service rep (and recently also project manager) at Vin65 is going well. It seems I have more than enough work to do every single day and I get to do the things I love. I still miss the crew at Netgenetix a ton, but I’m slowly getting used to the new one here at Vin65 too.

On the other hand, I have my weekend job at McDonalds, still ongoing. For a long time, despite the things that frustrate me, I’ve considered McDonald’s a fairly smart corporation that teaches its employees better work ethic as well as leadership and customer service skills. Recently though, it feels like they’re going downhill.

A new type of service technique called Global Front Counter has just been introduced at my restaurant and is being rolled out to many restaurants across the nation. Part of this new service technique involves having one crew member simply taking orders and a second crew person just gathering the food – the order taker is never allowed to move away from their till so that they are always ready to serve customers when they come in the door. This DOES make serving customers faster, no doubt, however there is one small flaw for low-volume restaurants. This has to be implemented at all times.

So this means that even when there are no customers in the restaurant the order taker cannot move from their till, not even to stock up or clean where they still have the front counter in view. This means they have only one small area to clean, which is within arms reach of their till. Trays are to be cleaned in the lobby and not be on the counter, so that scratches that secondary duty as well. This past weekend the girl on front counter was bored to tears and was not allowed to do anything away from her till (or the other managers got mad at her) – her receipt printer was sparkly clean and everything within arms reach had been cleaned 10 times over. Even if I am working drive thru by myself and have 10 cars waiting for food and front counter has no customers in sight, she is not allowed to help me because she would be abandoning her till.

What kind of work ethic does that teach? Learn some practicality here people.

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I’ve often asked the question ‘why?’ when it comes to Apple. I love that company, you might call me an evangelist for their products, and I’m not the only one. No matter what Apple creates or sells, I cannot help but want it.

I saw this video quite a while back, however I just remembered it now. Simon Sinek’s points and his theory of the golden circle make total sense and I wish more businesses followed this rule. It would be nice if products or services were marketed as something for a cause or a ‘why’ rather than just because it’s new and the consumer should want it. What’s the why? – for Apple, I would say it’s innovation and growth in technology.

Here’s the video, I strongly recommend you take a few minutes to watch it. It’s 18 minutes long, but even if you only get 5 minutes into it, you’ll understand.

I wish I could say that today’s blog post was brought to you by an iPad 2…. but I can’t, because it wasn’t. (Dear Santa…)

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I love this recent blog post from Seth Godin called Pricing Power. It got me thinking about worth.

We’d all like to think that we’re worth a certain amount of pay and perhaps for different reasons. It’s hard to tell how much you’re really worth sometimes when there’s nothing to challenge your thinking and perception. For the longest time I figured I was worth a good salary because, although I might not have as much experience as the next candidate, I’ll put my blood, sweat, and tears into my work along with loyalty and doing anything that will help the company grow and prosper. Most of all, because I work hard and I do whatever I can to exceed your expectations.

So if I’m not worth as much as I believe, then what am I worth? And how do we go about finding out what our true worth is? And the ultimate question too, who’s willing to pay for it?

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About a year and a half ago I saw my older sister’s website for her home based business and decided I couldn’t allow it’s outdated look to continue to poison the internet. Since I was building this site free of charge, it became sidelined many times as I was busy with work and my other activities. After I was laid off, I decided it was the perfect time to finally get it done.

My Little Impressions makes a replica of a child’s unique hand and footprints. These precious statues are then mounted in a choice of a shadow box or on granite. I redesigned and rebuilt this website using Wordpress so that the pages and pictures can be easily added and edited. Below you can see the before and after screenshots of the website design. I’m not that great of a designer (I think I just don’t have the patience for it), however I still think this turned out pretty good and it’s a huge step up from what it was before!

BEFORE

AFTER

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Today I’d just like to share with you a good article from Seth Godin’s blog. Sometimes it’s scary how right he is about so many different topics.

Taken from: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/02/how-should-you-treat-your-best-customers.html

Here’s what most businesses do with their best customers: They take the money.

The biggest fan of that Broadway show, the one who comes a lot and sits up front? She’s paying three times what the person just three rows back paid.

That loyal Verizon customer, the one who hasn’t traded in his phone and has a contract for six years running? He’s generating far more profit than the guy who switches every time a contract expires and a better offer comes along.

Or consider the loyal customer of a local business. The business chooses to offer new customers a coupon for half off—but makes him pay full price…

If you define “best customer” as the customer who pays you the most, then I guess it’s not surprising that the reflex instinct is to charge them more. After all, they’re happy to pay.

But what if you define “best customer” as the person who brings you new customers through frequent referrals, and who sticks with you through thick and thin? That customer, I think, is worth far more than what she might pay you in any one transaction. In fact, if you think of that customer as your best marketer instead, it might change everything.

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