Retailer Question - Vinopolis (OR)

[scottkieser]

@Richard T r i m p i

Keeping in mind that YMMV, the usual deal with retailers (no secret), is that relationships matter. If you just pop in to cherry pick an oddball bargain here and there, you shouldn’t expect world class service. If you put any time in to developing a congenial rapport with Dan and co., your efforts will be rewarded. Simple as that.

RT

Richard, when you open a 2000 square foot warehouse in the middle of downtown you ought to expect that a sizable percentage of your customer base is going to be casual consumers stopping in for an occasional bottle or two to bring home for dinner after work.

This store has a pretty nice selection of wines, and occasionally absurdly low prices, but the impression they give is one of complete indifference. They rarely greet the customer, never smile, stand 2 feet from the entrance and chain smoke (nothing says welcome like having to walk through a cloud of smoke on the way in the door), and can’t tell you a damn thing about 90% of their inventory.

I made a purchase here two weeks ago and as I was being rung up, I noticed a huge display of Perrier Jouet 2002 Cuvee Belle Epoque. I mentioned to the clerk that I had two bottles of the 2000 at home and was wondering about the start of its drinking window. The clerk gave me a barely audible “i don’t know” and an absolutely bewildered look. He seemed quite annoyed by the question. I can certainly accept that he didn’t know the answer. I wouldn’t expect him to know the drinking window of every wine in stock, it is a huge store after all. The contemptuous body language though, for a customer inquiring about a $100 bottle, speaks volumes about their approach to service. That is not enough to keep me from shopping there, but I certainly understand why members of this board are not inclined to return.

To be fair though, they get somethings right. I have many times bought bottles in multiples because of the aggressive pricing, only to find months later that i didn’t really enjoy the wine. They have always allowed me to return the unopened bottles for store credit. They deserve major props for that.

[Richard_T_r_i_m_p_i]

Scott, I’m sure Dan will read and consider your comments. I guess I know who to talk to. Perhaps it helps being 2400 miles away from the cigarette smoke. My perspective could be a bit more generous than yours, after years of experience with the PLCB system.

RT

[Dav_d_Parta_n]

They are my go to store for OR PN. Nothing but great service in my experience.

David

[B.A_Blevins]

Been buying from this store for 3 years now and nothing but praise. Great customer service when requesting specific bottles like Cameron or any other harder to find labels.

[dteng]

My favorite store in Portland, wine or otherwise.

[Joe_D]

to Vinopolis in my experience over the past several years.

[scottkieser]

@Richard T r i m p i

Scott, I’m sure Dan will read and consider your comments. I guess I know who to talk to. Perhaps it helps being 2400 miles away from the cigarette smoke. My perspective could be a bit more generous than yours, after years of experience with the PLCB system.

RT

I am certainly not comparing them to The PLCB! I am content to continue shopping there, and as I said earlier, they have done right by me many times. I just think there is definite room for improvement on the customer service front and can see how they might have alienated some.

[John_Osburn]

@Bob Wood

@Chris Johnson

@Scott Hollowell

I obviously need to give them another chance or two. I went in there to buy a Vintage Champagne that I was keen on getting based on seeing it on their web-site. On the site and the web they had it listed as the wine I wanted with High Scores and Price to match. In the store it was same vintage, but a lesser bottling. I pointed this out to them that it was mis-advertised and they seemed highly indifferent, the chap actually said “well, that’s what it’s marked so that’s what it is.”

I haven’t been back in the shop since given that customer experience.

I had a couple of similar experiences and won’t go back. One was a couple of bottles of viognier they supposedly had in stock. I asked for help and they pointed me to a pile on the floor. I couldn’t find it and asked again. The guy told me if I couldn’t find it, it meant they were out and he walked in back.

Decided to give them another chance when the 09 Patty Greens came in. I looked around and couldn’t find what I was looking for and got the same kind of treatment from another employee. Gave up on them after that. Shame since I live only a few blocks away.

These sound like my experiences at Liner and Elsen after Bob and Matt sold it.

This is so true. Used to be a regular of Bob and Matt and after a couple of trips under the new ownership I fled.

[Jim_Swayze]

Though I have no experience with futures through them, I highly recommend the shop and Dan McCallum in particular.

[ChrisNovak]

@Jim Swayze

Though I have no experience with futures through them, I highly recommend the shop and Dan McCallum in particular.

I’ll toss my vote in for another “not a fan.” While I continue to shop there due to their prices and excellent stock on hard to find wines, I’ve had very few positive customer service experiences there. Well, thats not exactly true. From my experience there are four people that work there (owner +3 employees), and two of the four are decent enough human beings. The other two are at best “curmudgeonly.” I’ve never once had even a remotely positive experience with their owner, who’s default facial impression appears to be a sneer. Once upon a time I unloaded an allottment of Quilceda to him at cost, and you’d have thought he was doing me a huge favor. Essentially handed me a check without ever looking up. No eye contact, conversation, or anything. The other employee whom I’ve had NUMEROUS poor run-ins with is the absolute epitome of wine snob. From my 10+ times going in that shop, I’d say he definitely doesn’t dig on the “talking about wine,” part of the job. More of a fan of the “buy this because I say so,” line of thinking.

Anyway, while I will grudgingly continue to shop there due to their having the best inventory/pricing in town, I haven’t done it happily in a long time.

p.s. I’ll also toss another complaint on the pile of Liner and Elsen. Bob Liner is a great guy, and new Bob…not so much.

[John_Osburn]

@ChrisNovak

@Jim Swayze

Though I have no experience with futures through them, I highly recommend the shop and Dan McCallum in particular.

I’ll toss my vote in for another “not a fan.” While I continue to shop there due to their prices and excellent stock on hard to find wines, I’ve had very few positive customer service experiences there. Well, thats not exactly true. From my experience there are four people that work there (owner +3 employees), and two of the four are decent enough human beings. The other two are at best “curmudgeonly.” I’ve never once had even a remotely positive experience with their owner, who’s default facial impression appears to be a sneer. Once upon a time I unloaded an allottment of Quilceda to him at cost, and you’d have thought he was doing me a huge favor. Essentially handed me a check without ever looking up. No eye contact, conversation, or anything. The other employee whom I’ve had NUMEROUS poor run-ins with is the absolute epitome of wine snob. From my 10+ times going in that shop, I’d say he definitely doesn’t dig on the “talking about wine,” part of the job. More of a fan of the “buy this because I say so,” line of thinking.

Anyone else noticing a pattern of comments here where most people with less than great experiences are locals? I think they definitely prefer to deal with people over the phone/internet than in person. That’s been my feeling when I have gone into the shop, anyway. I haven’t had any bad experiences per se, but I have just rarely felt…welcome to be in the shop. At least since a couple of times when they first opened.

[B.A_Blevins]

@John Osburn

@ChrisNovak

@Jim Swayze

Though I have no experience with futures through them, I highly recommend the shop and Dan McCallum in particular.

I’ll toss my vote in for another “not a fan.” While I continue to shop there due to their prices and excellent stock on hard to find wines, I’ve had very few positive customer service experiences there. Well, thats not exactly true. From my experience there are four people that work there (owner +3 employees), and two of the four are decent enough human beings. The other two are at best “curmudgeonly.” I’ve never once had even a remotely positive experience with their owner, who’s default facial impression appears to be a sneer. Once upon a time I unloaded an allottment of Quilceda to him at cost, and you’d have thought he was doing me a huge favor. Essentially handed me a check without ever looking up. No eye contact, conversation, or anything. The other employee whom I’ve had NUMEROUS poor run-ins with is the absolute epitome of wine snob. From my 10+ times going in that shop, I’d say he definitely doesn’t dig on the “talking about wine,” part of the job. More of a fan of the “buy this because I say so,” line of thinking.

Anyone else noticing a pattern of comments here where most people with less than great experiences are locals? I think they definitely prefer to deal with people over the phone/internet than in person. That’s been my feeling when I have gone into the shop, anyway. I haven’t had any bad experiences per se, but I have just rarely felt…welcome to be in the shop. At least since a couple of times when they first opened.

That might be the case as most of my dealings have been over the phone, but I have stopped in twice while staying at the Heathman or Lucia in Portland and needing a bottle for around the hotel room. They seemed fine, but I am kind of the antithesis of a “needy” customer, if I need you I will find you so…

[dteng]

Interesting.
Anyway, I usually chat it up with Kurt, who has been very helpful.
I consider myself a “local” even though I live in Bend. I make a point of stopping in at least once whenever I am in town…Never had a bad experience there.

[jbray23]

I can see where people think they are flippant or aloof but I wouldn’t say they are snobby.

Being a native aren’t we all that way? Have you ever been to a record shop in P-town, pulling teeth…






Jb

[Scott_Ho11owe11]

@John Osburn

@ChrisNovak

@Jim Swayze

Though I have no experience with futures through them, I highly recommend the shop and Dan McCallum in particular.

I’ll toss my vote in for another “not a fan.” While I continue to shop there due to their prices and excellent stock on hard to find wines, I’ve had very few positive customer service experiences there. Well, thats not exactly true. From my experience there are four people that work there (owner +3 employees), and two of the four are decent enough human beings. The other two are at best “curmudgeonly.” I’ve never once had even a remotely positive experience with their owner, who’s default facial impression appears to be a sneer. Once upon a time I unloaded an allottment of Quilceda to him at cost, and you’d have thought he was doing me a huge favor. Essentially handed me a check without ever looking up. No eye contact, conversation, or anything. The other employee whom I’ve had NUMEROUS poor run-ins with is the absolute epitome of wine snob. From my 10+ times going in that shop, I’d say he definitely doesn’t dig on the “talking about wine,” part of the job. More of a fan of the “buy this because I say so,” line of thinking.

Anyone else noticing a pattern of comments here where most people with less than great experiences are locals? I think they definitely prefer to deal with people over the phone/internet than in person. That’s been my feeling when I have gone into the shop, anyway. I haven’t had any bad experiences per se, but I have just rarely felt…welcome to be in the shop. At least since a couple of times when they first opened.

I’ll pick up on that and take it a step further. They send out weekly Newsletters which I receive. They are usually have some of the new arrivals on discount. Most everything in the newsletter will say something like ($17.95) $9.99 Net Special

I live close enough that I can swing in with a little advance planning, and doing so I save Sales Tax and Shipping. But a couple of times I’ve called and said I want to place the order on the internet but pick up in house, and have been told the Newsletter pricing will not apply.

WTF?

I’m sorry, but I’m actually causing you less work to just set it aside in a cardboard box than to pack it up and ship, and I’m willing to place the order online. Seriously?

[Dan_McCallum]

Well folks, I suppose there is always benefit in seeing one’s self and one’s enterprise through the eye’s of others regardless of it being pretty or painfull. On the personalities side of the conversation, as much as I would like to explain towards better understandings- I will resist. Personalities are, after all, personal.

But I will comment on Scott’s mention of newsletter specials not being available for in-store or telephone orders. And my comment is the same as yours Scott, ie WTF? I don’t know what would have given rise to that misunderstanding. We flat out never offer something online that cannot be purchased at the same price in-store, by email, by phone. The only differential pricing that we ever offer is some periodic newsletter subscriber specials. They are lower than our online prices, and the subscriber can access them when offered using any method of purchasing. We call those “secret handshakes”.

The term “net special” has been unclear for some people. I think that arises from some shops offering “internet specials”. With us, it simply is the historic commercial usage of the term “net”; ie, pre-discounted and no further discounts. Case & mixed case discounts are still the norm around Portland. We broke away from that around 2 years ago. We’d rather offer our very best price on bottle one and leave it up to you how many you want.

Guys, there is a reason for everything in all our lives. If something seems unreasonable it is more likely than not to be a misunderstanding.

[Scott_Ho11owe11]

@Dan McCallum

Well folks, I suppose there is always benefit in seeing one’s self and one’s enterprise through the eye’s of others regardless of it being pretty or painfull. On the personalities side of the conversation, as much as I would like to explain towards better understandings- I will resist. Personalities are, after all, personal.

But I will comment on Scott’s mention of newsletter specials not being available for in-store or telephone orders. And my comment is the same as yours Scott, ie WTF? I don’t know what would have given rise to that misunderstanding. We flat out never offer something online that cannot be purchased at the same price in-store, by email, by phone. The only differential pricing that we ever offer is some periodic newsletter subscriber specials. They are lower than our online prices, and the subscriber can access them when offered using any method of purchasing. We call those “secret handshakes”.

The term “net special” has been unclear for some people. I think that arises from some shops offering “internet specials”. With us, it simply is the historic commercial usage of the term “net”; ie, pre-discounted and no further discounts. Case & mixed case discounts are still the norm around Portland. We broke away from that around 2 years ago. We’d rather offer our very best price on bottle one and leave it up to you how many you want.

Guys, there is a reason for everything in all our lives. If something seems unreasonable it is more likely than not to be a misunderstanding.

Thanks for the reply Dan. This happened two different times to me a couple years ago, I only remember calling in and speaking to someone who said this could not be done. Maybe they were new, maybe things have changed, who knows. I still read the newsletters and will give it another go next time something catches my eye.

[ChrisNovak]

@Richard T r i m p i

Keeping in mind that YMMV, the usual deal with retailers (no secret), is that relationships matter. If you just pop in to cherry pick an oddball bargain here and there, you shouldn’t expect world class service. If you put any time in to developing a congenial rapport with Dan and co., your efforts will be rewarded. Simple as that.

RT

This seems like such a silly, self-defeating line of thought. Having worked in customer service fields for many years now, I have always been under the impression that converting the “occasional customer,” to a loyal customer was the responsibility of the business. Your line of thinking seems to suggest that businesses aren’t obliged to offer world class service to those who are new customers- world class service is something to be earned on the part of the customer. While I would certainly agree that regulars and repeat customers should be attended to especially carefully, you’re also never going to develop those regulars unless you treat the new “pop-in” customer as you would a regular. At least that has always been our thinking at the restaurants I’ve worked at…

As far as Vinopolis goes, I must say I am impressed to see Dan wade into this probably difficult to swallow critique. And while he’s right that personalities are “personal,” for me, I am far less put-off by an owners personality than the employees I come into contact with every time I go in. Its easy for me to imagine a scenario where somebody says:

“I love wine, I love running my own business, I’m not a huge fan of small-talk and yucking it up with customers so while I’ll open my own store, I’ll also hire a bunch of people to handle the stuff I’m not interested in.” That makes sense to me. I’ve worked for/with those types of people before with no problems at all.

The problem comes however when the people hired also aren’t very interested in customer service…such has been my experience with Vinopolis. Which I should quickly add isn’t limited…I’ve probably set foot inside 25x’s plus and have spent a fair amount of money there. Yet out of those 25+ times I can count on a couple fingers how many times I’ve left feeling happy with my experience. I’m almost always happy with the price I paid, and whats in the bag, but almost never never happy with the actual shopping experience itself.

Before going any further I should mention that there is one person there who I have generally had good experiences with. Brian (I believe his name is) seems to be a genuinely nice person. He’s always been approachable, helpful, and pleasant. Kurt however (I am admittedly hesitant to use names here) seems to rely on an economy of words. Answers are almost always clipped with an unmistakable snobbiness (I’m not even very sensitive to snobbishness either, really, it generally has to be thick to even register for me). The above story with the Perrier Jouet could have been interchanged with any of my experiences with him. Every time I’ve ever tried to chat it up with him regarding a recent bottle tried, crazy rating handed down, whats going on in OR wine, etc., it seems to instinctively turn into a p-ssing contest. I always walk away feeling like all I wanted was a little wine talk and friendly banter, and instead simply feel one upped and judged.

With that in mind, The store itself is great. It has a fun layout which makes you feel like you may stumble over liquid gold at any step ($8 bottles next to $400…cases all over the place…I love it), it has excellent winery contacts with a top-notch inventory, its prices are oftentimes extremely hard to beat, it stores everything at cellar temp, and it even regularly runs genuinely interesting tastings. It wouldn’t take much to turn it from severely flawed into seriously hard to beat. In the end I will probably continue shopping there as its inventory is that much better than everyone elses (though I may create a pseudonym now after this thread! Ha!), I’ll just continue hoping it figures itself out. I’d love to see its customer service match its business model. It’d be a truly awesome shop.

[Richard_T_r_i_m_p_i]

I understand your point but am sorry you don’t “get it” Chris. Perhaps some day. Whether you express the “I deserve world class service” attitude at finer wine shops is certainly up to you. There are shops (producers and importers) where they might show you the door regardless of the denomination of Dollars/Euros you’re waving.

You should say Hi to Brian. He knows something about Oregon wines.

RT

[ChrisNovak]

@Richard T r i m p i

I understand your point but am sorry you don’t “get it” Chris. Perhaps some day. Whether you express the “I deserve world class service” attitude at finer wine shops is certainly up to you. There are shops (producers and importers) where they might show you the door regardless of the denomination of Dollars/Euros you’re waving.

You should say Hi to Brian. He knows something about Oregon wines.

RT

What a rude and innane response. Obviously your entire motive here was to be snarky, so I should probably just leave well enough alone…but you know, sometimes I just can’t help it. Clearly you have some strong feelings here, and I can’t help but wonder how a guy in Upper Bucks County, PA (grew up in Lower Bucks myself) is on a first name basis with an entire store here in Portland, OR. Seems like perhaps you’re in the popular crowd there, eh? One that employs gratuitous name dropping even. It is a popular crowd right? The one you’ve more or less described in less obvious terms. The one where if you play your cards right, act really groovy, and buy a bunch of wine, you actually get to be treated like a customer?!

I guess you’re right, I “don’t get it,” and can’t really see myself ever getting it. I don’t profess “I deserve world class service,” (your words there, not mine) I more or less keep to myself in wine shops. To tell you the truth, it doesn’t even really matter to me a whole lot if I’m approached in a wine shop at all…I appreciate being able to wander around to quietly daydream. What I do feel like I deserve however, is to be treated with at least a modicum of courtesy when I approach them with a question. If I ask a question, and am gifted with an essential sneer and a snooty attitude, yeah, I’d say I don’t understand that business strategy. As I said, it seems a bit counterproductive. But hey, maybe its me the one being naive here…