An open letter to my friends and colleagues in the Mexican wine industry.
Through the culinary tours offered by my company, I tell hundreds of people a year that the Mexican wine moment is NOW. But if I have to be completely honest, it's probably more accurate to state that we are actually just on the precipice of a potential moment. And while we have certainly won some hard-earned early recognition as an emergent wine region to watch, it's safe to say that most people around the globe have not yet heard of Mexican wines, let alone the small region in Baja California where most of Mexico's wines are produced.
Outside of our region, and outside of the small circles intimately connected to us, it should come as no real surprise that the status quo response of those first learning about Baja California wines is, "Mexico makes wine?" Accordingly, I propose that we are currently standing at the edge of a chasm; a chasm that our budding industry must cross before we can celebrate true success as a recognizable wine regionand before our moment is fully realized.
A few wrong steps, and we'll be that region that could have been… that had the potential, but didn't execute… those wine and food entrepreneurs who prematurely celebrated their early successes while mortgaging their future. Standing at the edge of this chasm, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenge ahead, and the risks that inherently come with navigating a successful crossing. So how do we cross to the other side, where our success as a region beckons, without falling helplessly into failure's abyss?
I've recently seen many of our small winery partners focusing on International branding initiatives, exportation, distribution, getting their wines onto exclusive wine lists abroad, while trying to build a U.S. or European presence. All of these are noble business pursuits, but with limited financial resources, I'd assert that the key to crossing the chasm is not any of those things (not yet anyway). Rather, the key to a successful crossing starts with the customers right in front of you now, here at home in your winery.
The bridge-makers for your treacherous journey across the chasm are those customers who have taken the initiative and some risk to show up on your doorstep, at your winery, in person, IN MEXICO. And if you pay them the proper respect, investing intently in their experience at your winery, you'll create dutiful Sherpas who will happily carry your business to success. Customers who visit your winery in person are the most likely of all potential customers to become fans (and some super fans) of your wine, order it online, and share their love for your wine and your winery with others. Every one of these key customers has the potential to become your brand ambassador, working for you in places you can't even dream of reaching today.
Leading these culinary explorers to your doorsteps on a weekly basis, I have come to develop a unique perspective on your business, and on the entire Mexican wine businessthrough their eyes. I assert that the customers who show up at your winery in person are your most important and valuable customers today, and also for the long-term success of your business. Even if you don't agree with this assertion, I'm sure you'll agree that all your customers are important. So in that spirit, I encourage you to read what follows; which is a modest collection of my observations, thoughts, and advice on how to better serve the customers that some of you may currently be taking for granted.
Since most of you only know me from our brief interactions when I'm out leading tours of your wineries in the Region, we may not have had a chance to spend much personal time together. But I've been thinking a lot about you and your business. In fact, my own business as a wine + food tour company relies on you. You are my business partner, even if you didn't know it. So before I launch headlong into my thoughts on your customer service, please allow me the small indulgence of sharing a bit of my story, and how I ended up leading wine tours in Baja California
As many of the best stories in life go, I found myself here by mistake. A very happy mistake, as it turns out. The short story goes like this: I'm from California. I met my wife (also from California) while living in New York City. Both of us have been exploring Baja since we were kids. On our first date in New York, we realized that our parents knew each other. How? Baja California… Spooky small world stuff. A year and change later we decided to move back to California together; destination, San Francisco.
On that move out West, the Universe threw us a curve ball, and we ended up living on the beach in Northern Baja. I crossed the border regularly and traveled the world serving my company in New York. And my then girlfriend (now wife) took over the marketing duties for her parent's Discover Baja Travel Club. One day, back when weekends still belonged to us, she told me we should go check out the nearby Mexican wine country. My reaction was like many I've heard since: "Mexican wine, really?" I reluctantly gave in, and on that fateful day our love affair with the Baja California wine region was born. A year later, I quit my well-paying technology job, and we started Baja Test Kitchen (www.bajatestkitchen.com). Shortly after, we were married at Vena Cava Winery, in the heart of the Valle de Guadalupe. It was all a happy mistake, and I love it.
In just a few short years, our business has introduced hundreds of wine enthusiasts and foodies, from all corners of the Earth, to the Baja California wine region. Our business provides us a unique view of your businesswe see it not only through the eyes of our customers; our own business success (or failure) is uniquely tied to yours. When we started leading tours to the Region, there were about 50 wineries, a handful of restaurants, and only a couple US-based tour operators. There are now 120 wineries, over 30 gourmet eateries in and around the Valle, and I can't even keep up with all the new folks offering wine tours.
To say that the Region's growth has been brisk would be an understatement. And while most of the growth has been positive for sure, I've started to become concerned with ever-evident growing pains. The following are my notes, thoughts, and opinions on those growing pains, and how you as a winery or restaurant owner, might consider addressing them. With full pun intended, I invite you to consider the following as "food for thought" when thinking about how to improve your day-to-day customer service, and grow your business through positive reputation building:
1. Practice restraint. You don't need to take everyone who shows up at your door. For a small operation, exclusivity, in the form of "by appointment only," can be a good thingand if executed tastefully, it can serve to build a positive reputation. Turning away huge tour buses can be a very good thing, especially for the rest of your guests who feel instantly overwhelmed when 50+ people pile off the bus to inundate a previously peaceful and serene setting. If you're being honest with yourself, you'll agree that most of the winery and restaurant facilities in the Valle weren't built to accommodate the instant crowds that these big tour buses bring. Your dirt roads suffer, your parking lots clog, your delicate septic systems overflow (we've all smelled it), your precious water reserves go low, and the excellent service you normally offer falls flat on its face for all of your guests (including those who arrived by bus) as your small staff struggles to accommodate the spike in demand for their attention. It's not pretty.
[side note: BTK purposefully limits our tour groups to 25 people, preferring to "tread light" by caravanning in two smaller vehicles for larger groups; we always make appointments to ensure quality of service and guest experience]
2. Fiercely protect your customer's experience. Your good reputation was built by nurturing your first customers. You built the perfect little nest. You welcomed those first guests like members of your own family ("es su casa"). And in return, your reputation soared. Perhaps you even created a "good problem". Now that new crowds arrive seeking the goodness of your reputation, I'm afraid that many of you struggle to treat guests with personal attention, like you did in the early days. And believe me, people feel it. The magic that your first guests touted is often lost on the masses. Many of you tell me that winemaking faces a similar conundrum: as you increase quantity, quality often suffers. The answer to solving this good problem isn't easy, or cheap. Scaling your business to meet increasing demand is one of the hardest problems to solve in all of business. If you're interested in successful growth, practice restraint (see #1 above) while you build out new facilities. Hire, train, re-train, and monitor a professional staff (see notes below). Listen intently to the feedback that your customers and partners providecustomer feedback is a precious gift. Take action on that feedback.
3. Be on site when your guests are on site, as much as you can. About three months into leading wine tours in Mexico, we realized that those wineries and restaurants where the owners took an active interest in managing the daily and weekly operations of their business, offered markedly better customer service than those where owners are absentee. Accordingly, our tours no longer visit corporate-managed wineries. No one will care more about your business than you. Greeting and meeting your customers is important. Your staff will follow whatever example you set. If you hide or shy away from customer engagement, it tells your staff that customer service isn't important. A unique aspect of visiting the Valle de Guadalupe, as compared with visiting Napa for example, is that many of the winery owners are present. In the tour business, when a winery owner greets and talks with our guests, we call it "tour gold." If you wanted to have free weekends, perhaps you shouldn't have started a customer service/tourism business (and don't fool yourself to the contrary- the success of your small wine business is most definitely dependent on tourism). Weekends are when most of your customers are presentso greet them with gusto on weekends.
4. Believe it or not, the quality of your wine is not the most important part of your business. Without naming names, we've seen this time and again in the Valle. A regular wine will taste spectacular when presented in a stunning and memorable setting, with good customer engagement and service. And conversely, the best gold medal wines taste sour at the hand of a poor customer service experience. If you want your wine to always taste great, make good wine, AND then strive to pamper your guests with awesome customer service and neatly maintained facilities. Tasting is experiential. When you feel good, wine and food taste better– there is real science behind this claim. And it leads to euphoric spending (it's the psychology of retail– Google it to learn more).
5. Obsess about the details. Contrary to what your own live-life mantra might be, in the hospitality industry, you SHOULD definitely sweat the small stuffall of it. In the hospitality industry, the details REALLY matter. If you pass over a cigarette butt on the ground, pick it up. If a light bulb is out, stop what you are doing and replace it immediately. The details matter. Your staff will follow whatever example you setif you're not obsessed with perfection, don't expect the people you hire to strive for perfection.
6. Hire, train, and re-train a staff that consistently delivers world-class service. Nothing will cost your business more than an upset customer. So empower your front-line staff to make in-the-moment customer service decisions, and don't punish them when they make such decisions that favor your customers. It's probably fair to state that you're hiring frontline service staff from the local community who may not have ever experienced world-class customer service themselves. So why would you expect them to deliver such high quality service without extensive training? If you don't have experience managing or training customer service teams yourself, consider bringing in an outside expert/consultant to provide training to you and your staff. Don't rest on your laurels when it comes to reevaluating your customer service. Consider using secret shoppers to test your stafftest them on a Tuesday, and Saturday (service needs on those days are radically different). Ask your partners how they feel about your serviceask them/us to be honest with you, and reward us for sharing candid thoughts and experiences, rather than mounting a defense or excuse.
[side note: BTK can provide hospitality industry customer service training and consulting services; at the very least we'll share our own experience of your service with you, but usually only if you ask]
7. Keep regular and consistent hours. If you are open to the public without reservations and your posted hours state that you're regularly open from 10am-5pm, then have your staff arrive at 9am to set up for the day, and be ready to serve your first guests by 9:50am. You will alienate customers by conducting your internal opening procedures and daily preparations while customers are arriving; and then you've saved nothing. If you close at 5pm, that means that you should happily accept your last guests at 5pm. Don't close the door in their facewhen you do, you've lost a customer for life. If budget or scheduling constraints require that you have operations wrapped up earlier, then adjust your closing time accordingly. As an owner, consider opening and closing your operation personallyif you do, I guarantee you won't have staff showing up late, nor trying to scoot out early.
8. Be prepared. As a former Boy Scout and lifelong Eagle Scout, my motto in life has been to "Be Prepared." It's a great all-encompassing motto to follow. Start by keeping your promises and honoring reservations. Maintaining a reservations book in a central location for you and your staff will prevent embarrassing moments. Make sure you have enough of what your clients are coming to consume (wine, olive oil, preserves) on hand, and ready for consumption. For some of the smaller wineries, this may mean holding back some inventory, and pacing your tastings throughout the year. While it may seem contradictory to conventional wisdom, you'll lose customer confidence (and thus lose customers) if you are known to "sell out" of your product early in the season. Business is not a sprint; it's a marathon. Customers who show up at your facility with a reservation deserve the full respect of your careful planning for their arrival.
9. No smoking, please. There is no bigger turn off than having to suck down cigarette or cigar fumes while trying to enjoy your wine and food. I'm told that even most smokers don't enjoy second-hand smoke. You've educated us about how 60% of our taste comes from our olfactory sense of smell. So please do us all a favor, and post "no smoking" signs around your property. In doing so, you won't offend smokers (they are accustomed to it), but your other customers will applaud your stance. And if you do feel compelled to allow smoking, constrain it to a dedicated area away from others.
10. Restrain your pets and ranch dogs. This one might be hard for some of you to understand, but there are people in the world who are deathly afraid of dogs, even small dogs. Not to mention those who experience allergic reactions to pet dander; reactions that are sometimes severe. It doesn't matter if you know your dog is friendly; if your customer is afraid of dogs, or allergic to them, your customer is right. So release the hounds at night, when they won't bother anyone.
11. Treat your partners in the hospitality industry well, and we'll reciprocate in kind. Practice the old adage, "dance with the one who brought you to the dance". At BTK, we most often program tours to the places where our guests and we are consistently treated best. Consider a standing discount for your best tour guides and their customers (you can make our customers feel special for booking their experience with us, while reinforcing our own decision to continue bringing those customers to you). Invite us to your anniversary and Vendimia parties. We've felt a little hurt when we have brought you hundreds of new customers in a year, only to hear how great your party was the day after, knowing we were never invited (earlier this year at one winery, a staff member asked me why they didn't see me and my wife at their Vendimia party; I replied simply that we weren't invited; it was an awkward moment for that staff member who apologized, and conceded that they weren't allowed to make recommendations for comp invitees). More important than how much our guests and we spend at your business, is the exposure we bring youbut make no mistake, we do spend quite a lot. I've calculated that we've spent over USD $8,000 in tasting fees this year at just one of our winery partners, not counting the several thousand dollars more our customers spent on your wine and other products. And at one restaurant, we've spent over $18,000 this year on dining for our guests. As our business grows, there is no doubt that we will be rewarding those partners who take the best care of our guests and us.
In closing, I hope the thoughts and advice I have shared above will serve as an opportunity for self-evaluation, learning, and business growth. By no means is this list exhaustiveof course there are other important things to consider (e.g. quality of your wine, etc.). But I'd argue that the items above are of the most important, right up there with the quality of your wine.
Every customer that shows up on your winery's doorstep for a tasting is a gift, and it's my sincere hope that after reading this, you will see these wine explorers in that light. Many of these adventurous customers are tastemakers and trendsetterswith very real potential of becoming brand ambassadors for your business. Through their collective voice, your story will be toldwhether its good or bad. These are the people you need to impress in order to cross the chasm to success. Largely, they aren't famous restaurateurs, and most aren't master sommeliersthese are everyday wine and food enthusiasts, culinary adventurers in search of the next great thing. So ask yourself honestly: How do I treat these guests? If I were them, would I come back? After visiting, would I send my friends?
I think that you'll find that the key to crossing the chasm to success is already at your doorstep
Chris Mejia is owner and operator at Baja Test Kitchen.
Baja Test Kitchen's mission is to inspire others to develop an appreciation of Northern Baja's unique culinary culture
