Before you ask for the sale, here are some tips on building a bond with customers.
By Craig Root
One of the things I stress with new and veteran tasting room employees is the concept of “helpful sales.” I’ve hired lots of teachers, for example. They make great employees in tasting rooms, as they tend to be responsible, they are good with crowds and they are available on weekends and summer months. However, when I mention “sales” they can become wary, because they think I am talking about manipulation. To get them out of this mode of thinking, I ask them, “What do you do when you see a great new movie that you love?” The answer, inevitably, is, “I tell all my friends.” That is sales, but it is “helpful sales” — you are trying to enhance your friends’ lives.
It’s the same when selling a wine club membership. Imagine someone coming home after a bad day at work and being caught in a traffic jam. When they see their delivery from a favorite winery, they feel better. They open a bottle while cooking dinner and they feel even better. After I sell a wine club, I like to say to the new members, “The you of tomorrow will thank the you of today. You’ll come home from a rotten day at work and your club shipment will put wind in your sails.”
Of course, an important component of sales is asking for the sale. You can usually sense when people are ready to end their tasting, and a simple, “Would you like to take some wine home today?” can result in a purchase. That said, I don’t recommend asking everyone. Maybe you didn’t have a rapport with them, they were in a hurry or they didn’t want to talk with you. But that still leaves plenty of customers who do warrant asking for the sale. Before you ask for the sale, here are some tips on building a bond with customers.
The 15-second rule
Every customer coming in the door should be greeted within 15 seconds with good eye contact and a friendly smile. This is particularly important in tasting rooms that already have a first row of customers at the counter.
I do a lot of mystery shopping and often see folks who have just arrived being ignored. Even people with reservations can have trouble getting the staff’s attention if the room is busy. Clearly, this gets the experience off to a bad start. I work for a wide variety of clients, including very upscale tasting rooms that have a greeter at a podium, where it’s not a problem. But I also work with small, mom-and-pop operations that don’t have that luxury. They need to pay attention to the 15-second rule.
Being ignored when you enter a busy tasting room is a real turn off. Many customers leave without tasting (and leave a negative review on social media). Tasting room staff need to develop “big eyes” so they are always scanning the room for new customers.
Using analogies
If a customer asks, “Why do you use oak barrels?” You can say, “The oak barrel adds flavor to the wine.” Or you can say, “It’s like when you put a cinnamon stick in a cup of hot chocolate, it makes the chocolate taste better. The oak barrel makes the wine taste better.”
Which of those two examples is more clearly understood? Using an analogy takes wine out of its mysterious and intimidating world and puts it right in the middle of the customer’s world.
Similarly, if the customer asks, “What do you mean by the body of the wine?” You can explain, “It’s like milk; zero fat doesn’t have as much body as 2% milk, and 2% milk doesn’t have as much body as whole milk.”
Other expanded answers can include: “The grape is the most important part of winemaking. It’s like cooking. If you have a great piece of salmon, you don’t have to do a lot to make it taste great. But if you have a bad piece of salmon, I don’t care how great the chef (winemaker) is. You are sunk.”
“Why do you get rid of the oak barrels.?” Answer: “It’s just like a cinnamon stick. After repeated use, the flavor is gone.”
When you have a dessert wine as part of your tasting offerings and a novice taster wants to try the dessert wine first, you can say, “It would be like brushing your teeth and drinking orange juice right after.”
Open-ended questions
Another important technique for establishing rapport is using open-ended questions.
“Do you like Cabernet?” is a closed-ended question because it only requires a “yes” or “no” response. Open-ended questions are the type reporters use; they start with “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” “why” and “how.”
After you pour and describe the wine for a customer, you can ask “Where are you from?” or “How long have you been visiting the area?”
The real trick with open-ended questions is that you need to ask follow-up questions. If you are working in a Paso Robles tasting room and the answer to “Where are you from?” is Santa Barbara, I’ll ask, “What are your favorite restaurants there?” When the customer names a place, I’m going to ask, “What are your favorite dishes there?”
Not only am I building rapport and keeping the conversational ball rolling, I’m also profiling them. If they name a vegetarian restaurant or a steak house, you have a better idea of what wines to recommend.
One open-ended question has a second and very important use. “How did you hear about us?” is one of the most effective ways to quantify any outreach or advertising you are using.
Open-ended questions lead to rapport, which leads to trust, which leads to sales. Just remember some people aren’t interested in talking. I try three questions and, if the customer doesn’t respond, I leave them alone except for pouring and describing their wines.
These are techniques I have been using and teaching for decades, because I know they work and staff and customers really respond to them.
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Craig Root
Craig Root has more than 30 years’ experience working with tasting rooms. For more than 13 years, he was first staff and then a successful manager. For the last 20 years, he has consulted with more than 150 tasting rooms (including more than 90 start-ups, mostly in the United States but also in China, Canada and France). He is the only person who lectures on tasting room design and management in UC Davis’ continuing and professional education division.
