I think I just answered my own question. If you have the time to spend on this website and have the time to browse, post, respond to posts, etc., I assume you have the time to send a response to an email to a customer whose purchases allow you stay in business.
If you are going to sell directly to the public (and let’s be honest, make more money for the trouble), you need to perform basic customer service. Wanting to understand when a delivery will be scheduled is hardly the definition of entitled behavior.
I totally agree. I don’t think the OP was feeling entitled or being unreasonable in his expectations. My experience overall has been good with wineries responding to my inquiries. Actually it was two fairly large ones (not big corporate ones, but ones still considered on the smaller side) that were the worst, not even having the courtesy to respond at all. One was with a question about their wine club so you would have thought they’d respond, but nope. It’s like why do you even have contact info on your web site if you don’t bother to reply.
But of the “little guys,” I’ve gotten timely and very nice replies.
It doesn’t take a lot to respond to an inquiry. Email, phone mail, etc. are all accessible from a smart phone and responding itself takes little time. If you’re not able to address customers concerns in a timely manner then you shouldn’t be selling via the direct channel.
Dude, he said he was out of town
Marcus, I think you forgot the most important job. Head baby sitter! ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
Sheesh! There are lots of winery businesses that are one-person operations (or nearly so). I know one owner/winemaker who spends an awful lot of time on the road, so it may not mean anything significant if there’s a delay in response. Given that, however, anyone savvy enough to make good wine would likely be savvy enough to have mobile communications capabilities and, hopefully, be smart enough to know what good service means to a small business.
So… barring personal emergencies… a few days is about as long as a delay as would be OK with me for SOME kind of response… even a quick “It’s the middle of bud break and I’m out in the vineyard. I’ll get back to you ASAP”. If I were the winery owner, and knew I was hard to reach, I’d be sure I had an auto-responder email set up and/or an answering message apologizing up front from my inability to respond immediately. Just seems like a proper approach. But technical glitches can happen too, so I’d cut them some slack the first time anyway. OTOH, there are some people who shouldn’t really be in the retail side of business and I’d make my future decisions accordingly. I just am the kind of person who wants to give the benefit of the doubt, especially if the wine was good enough for me to buy direct in the first place.
If there’s a $40 bottle of Goodfellow wine at Liner & Elsen, doesn’t Marcus sell the wine to a distributor for $20, the distributor sells to Liner & Elsen for $30, then the bottle is sold for $40? At some point it makes sense to hire someone to help sell wine directly to list members at nearly double the price you get from distributors, doesn’t it? But when? And what about exploiting interns to clean bathrooms or work tasting rooms Marcus? I’d rather have a winemaker making wines than cleaning bathrooms. Either way, if someone isn’t going to return my emails, I’m not going to buy wine from them or from a shop selling their wines. Common courtesy is common courtesy.
So both wines arrived safely. That’s the most important thing. Still no phone call or email. But if I had a problem with my shipment and I contacted them now would I ever hear back from them? I’m just not sure. The proof will be in the wine. Will drink a bottle of each some time before next spring to see how much I like it to see which way the pendulum swings. Right now it’s not on the side of wineries.
This is just silly. Look, I buy essentially no wine direct. Having an old world palate makes direct model not very viable, and for the domestic wines I purchase I do so through trusted vendors. That said, the most given reason around here for why people buy direct from wineries is to have a relationship with the producer, to support the people and to enjoy a discourse with them on some level as a result. For some wines buying direct is the only option, but for others people are often willing to pay higher prices to buy direct than they could at retail for this “relationship.” So it seems to me that they deserve some level of service from the producers. Otherwise, why not just buy it for less at retail? This isn’t about “entitlement.” (which I find to be one of the most overused phrases in our culture today, btw) It’s about trading money for goods and expecting some basic level of customer service as a part of that exchange. It’s not entitlement, it’s commerce for Pete’s sake.
Wow
I view this as equally entitled, i am king, i make wine therefore you need to accept that customer service is not important because i am king and i make wine. Its my job to be king of the vineyard, not to worry about peasants wanting customer service and other such things.
Nobody held you at gunpoint to make wine, if you cant handle all the aspects get a normal job but dont come here complaining because someone wants to know when purchased wine is shipping
Basically agree. My take is to spend time perusing and posting on websites like this is ok, but not return a phone call or email from a customer (whose money he has taken) and just say “the wine is shipping next week/month/year” is too time consuming? I would think dealing with a customer would possibly lead to incremental sales-much easier to sell more to an existing customer than get a new one. IMO.
Not that Marcus needs defending, but I’ve always received excellent customer service from both him and Gaironn. Despite Marcus’ comments, I’d be surprised if any others that have dealt with Matello/Goodfellow have received less than satisfactory customer service.
But I do agree with Marcus’ point, I’d rather the winemaker be making awesome wine then responding to my emails/calls. Then again, I rarely ever feel the need to email/call a winery I buy direct from. If my email/call was not urgent, I don’t care when they get back to me. If urgent (say asking not to ship because I’ll be out of town), then make that clear in my message and assume that the winery is taking care of it even if I don’t hear back. If they don’t heed my request and there are issues with the shipment then I’d take it up with them then and decide if I still want to buy direct. I’ve only had one instance where a winery’s lack of communication/response had any real impact and it was remedied in a satisfactory manner.
IMO folks buying direct, whatever their reason, should accept that they may not always get the service they expect/want, but that does not necessarily mean they are receiving poor or inadequate service. If you think you deserve better, buy at retail or buy from other wineries where you get what you want. No offense to the OP, but I’ll never understand why these types of threads are started. If you don’t like the service/product - move on. Just as would in any other commercial transaction.
Thanks for your perspective. As the OP, my final lines/questions were " Anybody feel the same way? Or should I cut some slack to the little guys? Just curious how others perceive this issue." And that’s why I started the thread. Still relatively new to the wine world and just trying to learn and solicit opinions.
Alright, allow me to elaborate on my post saying you have to decide what level of service you’re comfortable with…
This same debate happens about watchmakers. They don’t make money bullshitting with potential customers, or answering emails & phone calls, or posting on watch forums - they make money when they’re fixing watches. Just like winery owners only make money when they’re making wine (which starts at the very beginning of each spring even before bud break all the way through bottling and shipping). The problem is they don’t have somebody else they’ve hired to attend to customer service because it’s expensive and cuts deeply into their margins. So, do you want great wine at a cheap price or are you going to fork out extra cash to help cover the HUGE overhead of employees? And believe me, personnel costs are the THE SINGLE MOST EXPENSIVE PART of running any business. That $75 bottle you love just jumped to $110. Your call!
I’d share two stories about two very small California producers:
One had a seasonal offering where they offered a mixed six pack or case of the entire offer & I chose the mixed case which included a micro production bottling (27 cases produced). When I tried to order the mixed case, the site was giving me an error message because that bottling was sold out. I e-mailed the winery who I knew had my cc on file & asked them to sub something of equal value and just charge my card. Like Scott outlined in his post, I wasn’t expecting a response outside of a receipt for the transaction. I get a phone call a few hours later from the owner/winemaker who wanted to know exactly what I’d like as a replacement, or if I just wanted to build my own case of wine with him on the phone because he felt bad that I had trouble with the ordering process. He even offered me some of the small production bottling from his personal stash. He only called me because he had sent me an e-mail & I hadn’t responded back to him.
The second isn’t as dramatic, but was certainly noteworthy. The winery hadn’t put up a good online ordering system, and offered customers a print & scan option or an order by phone, I chose the latter. After taking my order, the winemaker/owner explained that they used a 3rd party fulfillment & that they would get me a tracking # as soon as they had it. The following morning I woke up to a text time stamped around 2 or 3 in the morning with the tracking number. It stayed with me that this person works through the night to cover the details to customers while running a tiny operation.
Experiences like these are the ones that make a difference to me.
I’m on a lot of mailing lists many of them small wineries for many years. One of the reasons that I’m on so many lists is that a lot of the wine I like is not available retail. Or it may be available at retail now but when the wine gets great scores and gets discovered suddenly I would be unable to buy the wine at retail. I tend to be understanding in regard to customer service from small wineries feeling that their owners have to wear so many hats. Establishing relationships early in a winery’s life can bear fruit if for example you want to visit a winery for tours and tastings. I also have found that establishing a good relationship with FedEx and UPS is very important in regard getting wine delivered.
My biggest complaint is with wineries that continually raise their prices, charge exorbitant shipping costs, or suddenly no longer deliver to my state.
I guess I’m not the only one. Someone looking for their Berserkers Day Offer. Apparently no response after several requests.
Again, don’t expect Amazon information, but …
Nope, you will never be the only one thinking they got poor service. It’s a daily… make that hourly occurrence in every type of business regardless of how good or bad a business really is.
I think people are too hot under the collar most of the time and need to learn to chill. Everybody has a different rhythm and just because you want somebody to dance the samba when they are waltzing doesn’t mean they aren’t ‘doing their job’. If you get bothered by these differences, perhaps drinking wine isn’t for you and you need to reassess.