Have you ever opened up a bottle of wine that turned just absolutely nasty? You know what I’m talking about, you pop the cork and take a sniff and know something is wrong, but you take a sip to make sure. This happened to me recently after buying a pretty nice bottle from a local high-end grocery store. I had poured the entire bottle into a decanter and then poured a couple of glasses to taste…and confirmed the wine was bad. I took the empty bottle back to the store and politely explained to the wine guy that I don’t normally bring a bottle back but this one was really bad. Basically, the wine guy was not very cool and was very hesitant to give me a replacement bottle. He even questioned why the bottle was empty after I explained to him I had decanted the wine. He was like “dude you brought me an empty bottle” as if I was trying to scam a free bottle of wine. I had to tell him I live nearby and buy lots of wine there (true story). I also had to explain that I can’t remember the last time, if ever, I felt it necessary to return a bottle of wine purely due to nastiness. Normally if a bottle is just a bit nasty I will deal with it, or toss it, but this bottle was downright rancid right off the shelf. I guess my reason for posting this was that I was reminded how NOT to treat a customer, especially a local and loyal customer who frequents your store. Heck, I know the approximate profit margins on wine, and it does not take a rocket scientist to know that giving up 1 bottle of $20 vino keep a local and loyal wine customer is a no-brainer. (or at least to me it is). I will try to remember this little experience when dealing with customers of my own…
Tags: Customer Service, Nasty, Rancid, Vino, Wine
Customer service seems like such a mystical art to so many people in business. People can get the concept of closing a dealing, but I find so few people — organizations are made up of flesh and humans after all — who grasp the concept of repeat business. I’m sure you’ll take your money to someone whom appreciates it.
Normally when a local biz pisses me off I just give them a bad Yelp or something…but I did not feel like slamming the biz just for 1 bad wine guy. So true, it’s amazing how people forget the importance of repeat business.