Thoughts on Phone Calls

I generally hate the phone and would prefer all transactions to be via email or in person (the latter not usually possible because most of my customers are around the country). However, there are a number of times where I will have a pending order with a customer or I feel a customer has not ordered in a while and have something good for them, and they will not get back to my emails. I will try several times but to no avail. I have debated calling some of these customers to follow up but in the past when I have done this, people seem insulted that I am doing this and will often reply that they are busy and have my email on their list of things to do.

Curious what other retailers do in these situations and if you are a wine buyer, how do you react when a retailer calls you?

The only time I want a retailer to call me is in reference to a previously-placed order–to let me know if there’s a problem, or they need shipping info or permission to ship something that was held due to weather, etc.

By contrast, I generally do NOT want a retailer to call me to suggest something I might want to buy. 9 times out of 10, it’s something I’ve never expressed an interest in, and I consider it the equivalent of a cold call. An exception would be if I told them I was interested in Wine A, and they wanted to call me to tell me that they had some on pre-arrival or that it had actually arrived in the store.

Bruce

+1

Thanks Bruce. For argument sake, what if you had a good relationship with a retailer and trusted everything he had given you, would your opinion change? Further, what if you bought a wine from them and the new vintage is out?

Also, would you prefer email to a phone call?

I vastly prefer emails to a phone call. Phone calls interrupt me; emails I can choose to open, read, and respond when it’s convenient to me.

Bruce speaks for me. Call me at work to sell me wine and you will hear my wrath. Call me at home to sell me wine, and I will hear my wife’s wrath. :wink:

Seriously, anything other than an urgent shipping call is a no-no, unless I’ve asked you explicitly to call me about it.

If you’ve sent me 3 emails about a wine and I haven’t answered, I’m not interested.

Thanks for this. If someone has emailed you 3 times about a wine and you’re not interested, wouldn’t it be better to just respond to them saying you will pass then let the person continue to write you? Speaking from retail experience, I can’t help but wonder why customers I have a relationship (if even a small one sometimes) can’t bother to do this.

To give a better illustration: A certain customer, call him Joe, originally bought some cool Geeky stuff from me, we talked for a good half hour about his wine collection, etc and then left it off that I would contact him with a list of Egon Muller wines in stock. I did just that, waited 2 weeks, followed up, waited another 2 weeks and then followed up again to no response. It is appropriate for me to call him?

Because, sadly we have to have a job of our own in order to earn the money to pay for the wine. Also, it may not be clear that you’ve written to me specifically. I may assume it is one of those automated mailings that just inserts my name.

Tough call. If he said you should contact him when you had the list, then maybe a phone call is ok. It could be your email is in his spam filter or he shut down that email. But if he doesn’t seem interested on the phone, don’t push.

I am going to call. And for the sake of irony am going to call you afterwards with some new Bruno Giacosa and Conterno because you obviously need a new source for these!

I do not know these Giacosa and Conterno fellows of whom you speak, but I am curious where you work.



OTOH if you call me, I will say bad things about your mother and hang up. :wink:

I can tell you from experience, the response rate for our wine club bad credit card emails vastly surpasses what we got when we tried phone calls instead.

Anyway, I try not to call anyone any more. Seriously, most people want the chance to respond when it is convenient for them-which generally means email.

I have one retailer who I would be happy to get a call from. But I gave him my number in a personal setting. We have had many conversations about wine and the wine business. I would try any wine he thinks I will like, assuming I can afford it. When he’s given me wines I haven’t liked, I’ve learned something and it’s been an interesting experience, things I value as much as if not more than finding a fun bottle to drink. I appreciate his recommendations on a level that I don’t for most other people, even if I respect their opinion. I guess we’re “friends” in some ways. I’d probably also appreciate a call from Chambers Street Wines but I don’t think they really know who I am on a personal level. An employee from a neighborhood or big box wine shop? Pass. And I would still think it was odd even if we’ve had a few good conversations in his/her shop.

If you just get a number in the context of a mailing list at your store or on your website, don’t call. You are opening yourself up for a world of well-deserved anger. That is telemarketing. I think even if you have gotten a number of someone you’ve developed a bit of a relationship with, you still shouldn’t call. I think an email or two is good.

But if you’re emailing someone unsolicited ads, even ones you think they might like, you should not expect them to respond to you. You are invading their time and space. Be glad if they take the time to respond to you, but a person shouldn’t feel entitled to a response to an unsolicited message. If someone doesn’t respond to you after they’ve asked you for something? That’s a bit different, but I guess it’s just a fact of life.

Thank you for these excellent points. I am not a big box store and have a lot of relationships much like the one you described above so when someone like yourself (within this context) doesn’t get back to me, I can’t help but take it somewhat personally. I just don’t understand why a simple “no thanks Jeremy, be in touch,” is too difficult to write. I agree completely on not calling people whose number I have received from joining my mailing list. This is definitelty unsolicited. The customers I am referring to in this post are of the following: ones who have ordered numerous times but then suddenly went blank for a while or ones I have had discussions with (like the one I posed about above) in which we got along and then asked me to send them a particular list. I have had numerous customers tell me “wow you know your stuff…your going to be my wine guy from now on” to which I never hear from them again.

Depending on how many emails people get, they will often just hit “delete” for anything that doesn’t interest them. I simply hit “delete” for most retailer email offers, and will do the “unsubscribe” if I feel the number and content has too little value.

As for never hearing from customers again, think of it like a first date where the guy says he’ll call and then never does… [snort.gif]

Bruce

I’m still sitting by the phone, Bruce. [cry.gif]

As to people calling you back… I guess you just need to be thick skinned. You’re still in retail, even if it’s wine. These people are your customers. I would imagine in most circumstances, they’re not really, truly your friends.

no problem if you are calling me with a limited cherry offering that has time constraints, stuff you know I want or that we have talked about.

Richard–We’ve been on a few dinner dates, but as I told you on the first one, I really can’t do long distance relationships. I’m sorry if you felt that I toyed with your emotions. [snort.gif]

Bruce