Insights from working with a popular winery

I’ve had a ball working with a popular winery and seeing them using and implementing great systems in their business.

​A few takeaways regarding their systems:

• Booking calendar –  whether this is online (for people to book themselves) or hidden (so you can enter the dates and keep track of availability), having a calendar online makes it easier to see at a glance when you have resources available. Whether it’s a dining table, a wedding venue, a corporate booking or any other use, it’s good to look at the times where the speed of a quick calendar glance might help move someone towards a booking / purchase.
• Content Calendar & Scheduling – a huge time-saver was made through setting up a system to schedule online content through the month. At an all-hands meeting, the content is mapped out on a mind map and includes upcoming events, a big focus on Jobs To Be Done, shout-outs to local suppliers and highlights of the personal aspect of what they’re providing. The takeaway from this is that your systems can make you seem more corporate but you need to spend time adding as many personal touchpoints to the customer experience as possible.
• Reviews & Testimonials – these are gold to a retail operation. They’re a great way to get found on their networks but can be super-charged when used in outgoing communication and presented in a branded, beautiful way.
• Domain names – Owning their .com.au and their .com can seem like a small point but by owning both domains and setting up a redirect for the website & email address, they are able to reduce the chance of important emails going missing.
• Invoices – using invoicing software to handle this part of their business frees them up from the old days of using an Excel template and remembering when to chase someone up. Using a branded template, invoices are produced faster, can be tracked from first view through to online payment & the data can be used for reporting.
• Emails – I see a huge number of businesses using Outlook when they’ve clearly outgrown it. Using a hosted email provider, they can have multiple email inboxes that can be viewed by managers (who can also track customer satisfaction and response times). Email power-ups include seeing client’s social information in the sidebar, seeing customer’s lifetime value, adding private notes and using canned responses. Don’t even get me started on adding a knowledge base and using the information to drive faster responses…
• Dashboard – this can seem like an overkill for some businesses but if it ties in to what a manager is reporting on (sales, customer satisfaction, website visits, social media stats, booking stats, online mentions etc) then it’s a huge timesaver! Relatively simple to set-up and get the data you need in the format your eyes will appreciate (you can even have the data displayed on a TV screen in your office!).