[May 24, 2023 – Sandra Beals]
How do high performing hospitality teams go from good to great when hosting tasting room guests? Seasoned winery hosts first know their audience before sharing a wine presentation with relevant stories. In this post-pandemic period, time is the #1 commodity of winery visitors as many are reuniting with friends, family, and co-workers. Tasting room hosts must be proficient at making good use of guests time to be effective and appreciated. Winery hospitality teams – know your audience first to effectively deliver what guests want most and at every customer touch-point!
So what does it mean to be a “Master Storyteller”? Master storytellers help people get what they want. They know their purpose and the desired outcome they want to achieve when sharing interesting stories. The best stories in the world have inspired people to feel better about themselves and to become curious. The master storytellers of our time include Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Steve Jobs, Oprah and so on. What is the one commonality between these speakers? Each took the time to understand who their audience was and what they needed most before presenting.
How can your hospitality team go from good to great by applying this important learning? Here are five hospitality team training tips:
#1 Confirm who your audiences are based on interests and buying behaviors. First-time guests will have different wants and needs than repeat visitors and long-time club members. Take time to glean preference-based and demographical information from customer records and notes to build your top 3-5 “Audience Profiles”.
#2 Set a training session to present your top 3-5 “Audience Profiles” and ensure each member of the hospitality team is clear about wants/needs of each segment.
#3 Work as a group to develop your list of meaningful stories that best connect with each “Audience Profile” using a three-pillar approach to storytelling. Simplifying the storytelling process by leveraging focused and most interesting stories will help the hospitality team better memorize and organize to be more effective.
#4 Set a scenario-based training session to work through the most common situations within each of your visitor spaces and wine presentations. Seasoned members of the hospitality team will be able to model proper storytelling scenarios with the assistance of the management team. Gather additional feedback from your group while perfecting the art of storytelling in this training session. Update the “Audience Profiles” with the most common scenarios.
#5 Monitor feedback/measure success the first week! Improved guest satisfaction, an uptick in five star reviews, an increase in average order values, and conversion ratios should be expected when winery hosts are better connecting with guests. Commonalities will be found, desires will be met, and in some cases, dreams will come true.
Once this training program has been completed, take time to audit all of your consumer touch-points and update with your most effective stories by audience type. How does your website, digital outlets, email marketing campaigns and event invitations appeal to your most common audiences? Does your wine brand offer social media instant messaging and website live chat to invite, provide options, and solve problems within minutes? Speaking the right language in all customer-facing outlets will ensure that your wine brand remains relevant in today’s competitive direct to consumer sales space. Interested in learning more about DTC Wine Workshops Training Services? Reach out to set an exploratory chat HERE.