How is this a bad thing? You can give “free gifts”, or not, as a winery and still have great customer service. They are not mutually exclusive.
Most people appreciate little extra things that makes it feel like they’re being taken care of.
But, the title of the post is a little off to me. It implies that if you don’t give free gifts you don’t get it. Which of course is not true.
Well, Ian…I’ve made any number of posts like this before. Complimenting a wnry when they’ve gone out of their way to provide
good customer service. Though not really 26 times before…I’ve just lost count. But apparently I was “wrong” to do that before.
Good customer service is not just free gifts…it’s everything that Merrill alludes to above as well.
Tom
I would offer the hypothesis that most, if not all, of the wineries that send out gifts are probably excellent in the other facets (or the “real aspects”) of customer service.
One year, Cayuse send me a CD by Brigitte Aremenier - Classical Piano (Brahms/Schubert). I listened to it yesterday AM, and thought of them. It was a very pleasant accompaniment with my coffee.
When Wells owned Copain, he sent me a four pack of his various wines as a loyalty thank you. These weren’t new releases.
I guess you could say there was a marketing aspect to these acts, but I would still offer that it is part of customer service. A happy customer buys more, and stays longer.
I’d rather have them subtract the cost of the gift from the cost of the wine that’s paying for the gift when I buy it.
And you can use those savings to pay down your student loan debt! 
Not a stretch at all. If you incur an (arguably) unnecessary expense to laud customers, it comes directly from the bottom line. To do so, in my mind, suggests they value their customers and truly want to thank them for their business and/or they are terrible business people. Assuming they budget the expense, they are more likely just the former. Certainly there is some calculus at play over bottle price vs gift cost, but at some point you have to assess the thoughts/motivations behind it. For me, and I am not a customer of theirs, it would have little if no impact on my purchase decision. My decisions overwhelmingly come down to product quality and the customer service items you described. If one engages in direct marketing and won’t honor defective products, they have no honor at all in my book. No tchotchke can save that relationship.
The TCV gifts really don’t do it for me. Going the extra mile, doesn’t really have to add much much: Send a personal email or card, make visiting more intimate, pleasant, and interesting etc.
Wineries such as Model Farm, MacDonald, Rhys really do get it.
It all depends on the markups and profit margins each winery aims to achieve. Let’s say you have a Napa winery that charges $500 a bottle. What is their true profit margin? Some wineries build in huge markups, some not so much; so how a “gift” factors into the price you pay is just one of the costs that goes into determining the price of the wine but along with that is how much margin the winery wants, too.
Saying you would rather have a lower bottle price than the gift that is sent out is no more relevant than saying you would rather wineries that charge high markups reduce those markups to be more in line with wineries that have lower markups so that you can have a lower bottle price. Also, if you factor in the cost of a gift spread over the number of bottles produced, that is an insignificant amount per bottle.
To me, the feeling of appreciation I get from Tablas Creek through the gifts they send outweighs any reduction in bottle price that might occur from not sending these gifts. And it could very well be that their profit margin is lower than a winery that doesn’t send anything at all or express any sort of appreciation to its customers.
Well said and could not agree more!
I mean, if you want to send out a “free” (because nothing is really free) gift, I guess that’s a nice gesture but, to be honest, if someone sent me a calendar, even a nice one, I’d probably toss or donate it, because I haven’t used a calendar outside my phone/computer for more than a decade.
This.
TC is not some huge corporate conglomerate - they are a family owned, family run partnership between the Haas and Perrin families. To me, this is simply a goodwill gesture as a means of thanking their loyal customers - nothing else. If you don’t use it or ‘get it’, that’s okay - but to assume that, instead of doing this, they could lower their prices (which, IMHO, are already quite fair) is ludicrous.
As usual, YMMV, and no one is insinuating other wineries have to ‘follow along’ in order to be considered a winery that ‘gets it’. Heck, SQN has always been applauded for their reminder postcards year in and year out for those on the list - couldn’t they ‘afford’ to move people off the waiting list and onto their purchase list if they stopped doing those and put more $ into production? ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
Cheers.
To me, the fact that JasonHaas spends the time to come up w/ a gift idea, different every year, to express his appreciation for my business over the last year,
is emblematic of his desire to instill good customer relations. The value of the gift would only add pennies to the cost of a TCV btl of wine.
Just like the time several yrs ago, JakeBilbro was handwriting personal thank-you notes to many of his customers at Christmastime.
Alas…I did not receive one from Jake. Even better, I got one from his son, Cruz, who was helping his Dad & wrote it up on his own volition.
Cruz & I are now fast friends. But that typifies what good customer relations is all about.
Tom
Have enjoyed the back-and-forth on this one. I think the thing I might take issue with is anyone clearly “defining” what good customer service is without stating that it is that for them alone. Not wanting to get too metaphysical, but good customer service is going to mean different and “customized” things to each of us, depending on what our own individual wants and desires are for that. This is only me, but I don’t think even a well-thought-out gift would influence me nearly as much as an engaged winery owner, winemaker or customer service team.
I’ll point to one personal example, Sojourn Cellars. I know not everyone is a fan. I am, and have been a dedicated (if small) buyer for a long time. It’s not because I got to use the guest house a couple times. It’s because Craig has never failed to be generous with his time and thoughts on winemaking and the industry with me. It’s because, even when I had to change the timing for an appointment, they found a way to fit me in. Maybe it’s that these are not “general, we’re doing this for everyone” touches, but feel individualized to me.
Cecile Tremblay might be another. I know the wines are frightfully expensive now and very hard to source. But if I could find one, I might plunk down the cash. That is largely off of one visit where Cecile not only made time for me but insisted I taste practically everything in her barrels at the time. Ditto Pichon-Lalande…I was about 3 hours late for an appointment there and still they were gracious and took me around the whole complex and tasted us on some wines. That’s Mike’s definition of good customer service. I’ve even bought a wine or two of Merrill’s 
Largely because she’s made time, a couple of times, in a busy schedule, to talk shop with me and invite me into her home.
Some of this is give and take. The customer can himself/herself give good customer service—by posting positive reviews and providing free advertising, after a fashion. And also by “ambassadoring” the wines to friends who may not have tasted the wines before. I do know that many of my winemaker friends value this and I’m happy to provide it from my end. There’s somewhat of a symbiotic relationship—or should be.
The lick says North Coast Sonoma County; but the nose upon burning was pure Russian River.
yet in the end, if the winery didn’t send those gifts and stationary, they could charge less per bottle of wine and not lose a single customer over it.
True dat, Alex. The gifts are nothing expensive and, given the production level of TCV, they might be able to reduce the price by, maybe, 5 cents a btl and keep the same profit margin. I suppose that ‘d make a difference to some folks. Probably not me, though.
Tom
Bah humbug.
I gotta say I guess I’m surprised to see as much backlash as this got. I don’t think the OP was suggesting that the GIFT was the only important aspect that made the customer service great. I think it is just used as an extra example. I also agree that when something creative and personal like this is done, its probably a pretty good indication that they are focusing on all of the actual important aspects that everyone else is talking about as well (besides, maybe, the couple dollar price bump to pay for the gifts)
TCV makes good wines and that is why I’ve been a member of their club.
Their customer service is not nearly as good as the wineries I mentioned above.
I visit probably twice a year and have also tried various “personalized” tastings that required advance notice. Each time I’m asked if I want to sign up for their club as if I just walked in off the street!?
That said, the wines really are good.
I never tip, because, like, what are the odds of seeing this waiter again?
I don’t think Tom meant to imply anything like that. What he received was just one of many things that reinforced TCV’s commitment to customers. I no longer order from them just due to cutting out almost all US winery purchases, but I did for several years and I visited once. They are a top notch operation with great people and I totally get where Tom is coming from. Our visit was just a drop-in to the tasting area but the person working was very knowledgeable, treated us wonderfully and served us a bunch of behind the table wines. My brother and his family were here from the east coast and it made their trip. He still buys from TCV.