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MARKETING The ABCs of Savvy wineries grasp building blocks of customer relationship management to extend direct sales By Kerry Kirkham of a committed club member can translate into steady and reliable cash flow. This is where customer relationship management (CRM) comes into play. Today's uncertain economy makes now an ideal time to take action and seek potential revenue streams that other in- dustries are actively tapping. Restaurants, hospitality providers and retail boutiques have embraced direct-to-consumer (DtC) CRM, but the wine industry is sorely lagging. Wine industry-specific build- ing blocks can help wineries design and implement CRM plans, be they through software, hiring specialists or taking courses to sharpen DtC CRM skills. T Everyone else is doing it Increasing the CRM DtC sales ele- ment starts with creating a positive and memorable experience when guests first set foot in the winery. Guests must have a rich sense of a winery's brand to develop a deep commitment, so the bar for a pleasant and focused customer experience must be set high. When it comes to CRM, Dawn Wof- ford, owner and managing partner of Benchmark Consulting in Napa, Calif., advised, "Wineries need to open their minds up to what other like-minded industries with affiliated demographics have done and been successful at. When you arrive at a Ritz Carlton or Four Sea- 46 Wines & Vines MAY 201 1 hough winery staffers focus a great deal on signing up wine club members, they often pay little attention to maintaining existing customers' interest in the brand. The lifetime value sons Hotel, they know your name right when you pull up, whether you want a newspaper, what kind of coffee you like." Wofford cited the opportunity to capture credit card and client data the moment a client walks into a business. "There are ways to make people special and welcome," Wofford said. She has noticed that wine is getting better and prices are getting lower, yet customer service is getting weaker because wineries are losing sight of the details. "Those bits of information make all the difference in the world." Craig Root of craigroot.com, based in St. Helena, Calif., is currently consulting for seven different winery tasting room startups in five states: North Carolina, Texas, New York, California and Oregon. Root remarked that good restaurants know a customer's favorite dish and even where his favorite table is. He related how his local pizza place can tell by looking at his phone number on caller ID that he likes blue cheese dressing served on the side when he orders a salad. "A lot of tasting rooms have the same ability via their POS software, but they don't bother to collect and analyze the data. You should know that Ms. Jones really likes your Syrah. You need to make sure you're capturing good infor- mation from the staff and from your POS." In the world of CRM, the main thing is keeping accurate information about who your best buyers are. Ac- cording to Root, wine club members or customers who spend more than $1,000 per year in the tasting room should be the primary target. Even when the tasting room is packed, establish acknowledge that you'll be with them shortly. Software solutions For those who operate tasting rooms housed in perpetually cash-strapped wineries, the inability to invest in and implement a state-of-the-art CRM solu- tion can be a constant source of frustra- tion. But it's one to which winery owners must never surrender. Not only do winery owners need to find the time to focus on this potential revenue source, they need to find a tenable solution to accomplish Highlights • The wine industry lags behind the hos- pitality business in terms of customer relationship management, yet CRM can enhance direct-to-consumer sales. • CRM software solutions must integrate well with point-of-sale and legacy sys- tems such as QuickBooks and Excel. • Tasting room managers need to be given time to develop, implement and main- tain effective CRM programs.