REthink Wine Blog

Ah yes, high oil prices, global warming, chemical waste, non-recycled plastics, pollution, pesticides and herbicides…

Amid current environmental impacts affecting our surroundings, there seems to be a lot of buzz about ‘Going Green - Staying Green’, and how it can benefit Mother Earth. Sustainable farming, renewable energy, alternative fuel sources, recycling, organically produced and eco-friendly products - these are all contributing factors toward solutions for “Saving Mother Earth”.

Therefore, with an increase use of harmful pesticides in our environment, it is not surprising to hear that more people are buying organic. The OTA (Organic Trade Association) reported in an online article that in 2002, 39% of the U.S. population uses organic products.

Well, a number of wineries and vineyards are also cognizant of the environmental impacts and are getting back to basics. They are engaging in biodynamic programs and producing organically grown grapes to fill a niche in a growing market of supply and demand for Organic Wines.

What is Organic Farming??

Wikipedia’s Definition: Organic farming is a form of agriculture that relies on crop rotation, green manure, compost, biological pest control, and mechanical cultivation to maintain soil productivity and control pests, excluding or strictly limiting the use of synthetic fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, plant growth regulators, livestock feed additives, and genetically modified organisms.

What is Organic Wine??

USDA of a National Organic Program: An organic wine is now defined as “a wine made from organically grown grapes and without any added sulfites”.

If you’re interested in tasting or purchasing Organic Wines, listed below are some of our clients who produce such wines:

BARRA (Mendocino) http://www.barraofmendocino.com/barra/index.jsp
BONTERRA VINEYARDS (Ukiah) http://www.bonterra.com/home.html
FETZER VINEYARDS (Hopland) http://www.fetzer.com/fetzer/home.aspx
GIRASOLE VINEYARDS (Redwood Valley) http://www.girasolevineyards.com/girasole/index.jsp
JERIKO ESTATE (Hopland) http://www.jeriko.us/jeriko/page/story.jsp
MEDLOCK AMES (Healdsburg) http://www.medlockames.com/medlock/index.jsp

In addition, why not treat your self to a “Green Wine Country Tour”, check out the following companies - they both use vehicles powered by biodiesel fuel:

Incredible Adventures -
http://www.incadventures.com/trips/wine-tours/san-francisco-wine-tours.php
Sustainable Vine Wine Tours -
http://www.sustainablevine.com/tours.asp

I believe we should all do our part and contribute where we can to help protect our environment. I believe we can all make a difference. Maybe that’s why I drive a hybrid, I recycle, I buy organic - and I’m conscious about what we put into our oceans and our dirt.

Go Green - Stay Green and play your part!

With the warmer weather approaching, the music festivals and summer concert series are just around the corner and the wineries in Sonoma and Napa are getting ready for the season.

Last year, I had the opportunity to sample some of the local wines along with tasteful music. It was a wonderful experience and the genre of music spanned the spectrum from classical to blues. I was pleased to find out that some of the festivals donated their proceeds to a non-profit organization that benefited charitable causes or assisted local communities. Other ongoing concerts were held weekly at the winery to help sponsor and showcase the local talent.

If you’re a winery with upcoming events, take the time to promote them not only on your website, but list them with the local entertainment guide as well. It’s a great way to reach out to prospective consumers looking for music based events. The potential to grow your customer database or club memberships from a concert series is an opportunity to develop your business and sell more wine.

Whether it is Mozart with Merlot, Chris Isaak with Cabernet, Diana Krall with a Sangiovese or BB King with a Pinot, listed below are a few upcoming events for this year that are worth checking out:

Sonoma Valley Jazz Festival
http://www.sonomajazz.org/

Music In The Vineyards
http://www.napavalleymusic.com/music/index.htm

Festival del Sole
http://www.imgartists.com/?page=festivals/napa.html

Rodney Strong Vineyards - Jazz in the Vineyard
http://www.rodneystrong.com/rodneystrong/page/concerts.jsp

Bookwalter Winery – Summer Music Café http://www.bookwalterwines.com/bookwalter/news/events.jsp

Robert Mondavi Summer Music Festival
http://www.robertmondaviwinery.com/flash/index.cfm?month=5&day=2&year=1968&x=38&y=19

Calistoga Downtown Jazz & Blues
http://www.calistogajazz.com/index_files/Page398.htm

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2007 was a remarkable year and looking back, the CSS department had a few favorites…..

The Best  Boss = Stephen Mutch (Director of CSS)

CSS Staff Favorite for wine = 2004 Lancaster Estate Cabernet Sauvignon
http://www.lancaster-estate.com/lancaster/index.jsp

CSS Staff Favorite for Company BBQ = Finance Department (Robin Clark)
Miso Salmon
Korean BBQ Ribs
Vietnamese Pork Chops
Kim Chee
Green Salad / Cucumber Miso Dressing
Steamed Rice

We’re certainly looking forward to 2008!

With the Holidays right around the corner, NOW, is a great time to start featuring your Holiday specials. Take the time to promote your products by maximizing the real estate available on your website. Use your kickers for special events and promotions, even gift memberships for your wine clubs. Prioritize your products on your store page.

If you have recipes for the Holidays - don’t forget to pair them with your wines.
For each recipe, you can add a link to your wine store, making it easy for your customers to purchase the wine you’re suggesting.

Put together gift baskets and holiday bundles that include both your wines and non-wine items as well. These can include wine related gifts, such as, books, games, journals, bottle openers, coasters, etc.

It’s not too late to start planning your promotions! Organize your materials and send out your promotions to segmented groups such as wine club members, top customers, chardonnay or cab lovers, even friends of the winery.

To learn more about techniques for creating bundles and featuring your products, contact the training department.

With the harvest and crush season upon us, time, for many of you, may be quite limited. Therefore, we are making it easier for you to learn more about how to use REthink by providing pre-recorded training sessions. We’ve just posted the Basic Training Session, and it is now available for viewing on your computer, at anytime, from any location. You will need the following system requirements to view the Webinar recording:

For Windows Based Viewers:

1. Required: Windows 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
2. Required: Internet Explorer 5.0 or newer, Netscape 6.0 or newer or Mozilla® Firefox® 1.0 or newer
3. Required: Stable 56k, cable modem, ISDN, DSL or better Internet connection
4. Recommended: Minimum of Pentium 400 MHz with 256 MB of RAM

For Macintosh®-based Viewers:

1. Required: Mac OS® X 10.3.9 (Panther®) or newer
2. Required: Safari™ 1.3 or newer, Firefox® 1.5 or newer on PowerPC G3/G4/G5, or Firefox® 1.5.0.2 or newer on Intel® (JavaScript™ and Java™ enabled)
3. Required: Stable 56k, cable modem, ISDN, DSL or better Internet connection
   Required: PowerPC G3/G4/G5 or Intel processor (G4 450 MHz with 256 MB of RAM or better recommended)

The Modular and Advanced Training Tutorials will be available shortly.

If you are an existing or newly launched client and you would like to watch the tutorial, please send an email to training@inertiabev.com.

I recently had a couple of friends visiting from out of town who marveled at the idea of wandering about the Wine Country. Having grown up in Northern California, they asked if I could suggest any wineries for them to visit. I started up my laptop, pulled up the Featured Clients page on the Inertia website and told them to take a look at the wineries and their Events page. They were completely overwhelmed by the amount of wineries listed and didn’t know where to begin.

I mentioned that some of the most beautiful countryside could be seen and there was more to offer than just wine. For example art and architecture could be appreciated at Artesa Winery: http://www.artesawinery.com/about/vcenter/ 

If music was of any interest, then perhaps they could attend a summer concert series at Rodney Strong Vineyards:
http://www.rodneystrong.com/at-the-winery/events/concerts.asp 

Of course, the food samplings and pairings couldn’t be left out, so I suggested Luna Vineyards: 
http://www.lunavineyards.com/luna/catalog/view_product.jsp?product_id=1095&cat_id=4  

Otherwise, if they wanted something more filling, then the Seghesio Family Vineyard offered a select wine pairing dinner: http://www.seghesio.com/seghesio/page/pairing.jsp

My guests were absolutely charmed with my recommendations and couldn’t wait to roam about the countryside. They of course, found other delightful wineries along the way and even joined a few wine clubs.

If you have an events page on your winery website, you should take the opportunity to list your upcoming events. Whether you’re hosting them or attending one, let your customers know. They may want to join you, or better yet, refer you to someone else.

Our Client Development Managers teamed up with the CSS Training department last month and hosted an Email Workshop at our Napa Office. We had a great turn out and a very successful session for all. The feed back was wonderful and based upon that, we’ve decided to hosts a few more workshops for our clients.

Therefore, the RTE Modular Training Sessions held on Wednesday’s will change for August and September. All training sessions are from 10am – 12pm, and the workshop will follow. See below for the new schedule:

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

• Email Workshop - AUGUST 22ND
• Club / Allocation Workshop - AUGUST 8TH
• Quickbooks / Reports Workshop - AUGUST 15TH
• Content / Web design Workshop - SEPTEMBER12TH

MODULAR TRAINING SCHEDULE

Clubs Module
Will take place on August 8th, and September 5th.  This session is a detailed look at the process of creating and processing a club.  This includes the package setup through order fulfillment. In addition, the Allocation tool will also be covered.

Email Marketing /Product Management
This will be held on August 22nd, and September 26th.  This is a detailed look at the Email blast tool. Learn about creating customized email templates and targeting select groups for an email blast.  This also includes a section on managing products you are promoting.

Content Management
Occurs on September 12.  This is a detailed look at the HTML editor capabilities in the RTE.  Learn about hyperlinks, image management, linking to documents and so much more. 

Customer Management
This will be held on August 29th and September 19th.  This is a detailed look at the customer module.  This includes the CRM functions as well as completing a customer import / export and merging potential duplicates.

Take advantage of this free training either by a watching a Webinar broadcast or attending an in-house session. However, all workshop attendance must be attended in-house. If you would like to participate in any of these modular training sessions or workshops, please send an email to training@inertiabev.com or contact your Client Development Manager.

See you soon!

I had a customer call up the other day asking where he can learn more about the advanced features of the REthink tool. I promptly pointed him to our website and told him about our advanced and modular training sessions. They’re free, and we’re hosting them every week.

Want to learn more about how to create and apply discounts? Are you challenged with editing content, such as creating links to documents? Do you want to know why it’s useful to complete a customer batch update? Are you’re processing your wine club for the first time? Are you curious about what is involved with managing categories and products? Want to know if duplicate records exist and can they be merged?

For those newly launched clients who have only attended a basic training session for Rethink, I invite you back for advanced training. Maybe you need to brush up on the newly released enhancements, come join us for an overview. If you’re interested in learning more about and individual module, why don’t you attend one of our Wednesday sessions?

Listed above are just a few, of many features, we cover in our modular and advanced training sessions. It’s easy to signup. Just check out our training schedule and send an email to training@inertiabev.com to reserve your space for either an in-house or Webinar (off-site) session. Our Training Calendar is located at : http://www.inertiabev.com/inertiabev/page/training.jsp

I look forward to hearing from you.

With the newly added features and enhancements just released in REThink 3.9, a modular training session would be the ideal venue for you to become familiar with the changes.

Beginning in June, we will be hosting regular scheduled training sessions. Listed below are brief descriptions and times. Don’t miss out on our free training! Send an email to training@inertiabev.com and schedule your next session. Please refer to http://www.inertiabev.com/inertiabev/page/training.jsp for more details.

Basic Training Sessions
Occurs every Tuesday,10am – 12pm.  A basic overview of the RTE 3.9 and the day to day processing of a winery.

Advanced Training Sessions
Occurs every Thursday,10am – 12pm. The advanced concepts and tools of the RTE 3.9. 

Clubs Module
Occurs on the first Wednesday of each month.  This session is a detailed look at the process of processing a club.  This includes the package setup through order fulfillment.

Customer Management
Occurs on the second Wednesday of every month,10am – 12pm.  This is a detailed look at the customer module.  This includes the CRM functions as well as a detailed look at the import and duplicate tool.

Product/Category Management
Occurs on the third Wednesday of every month,10am – 12pm.  This is a detailed look at the Product and Category management tools in the RTE.  Learn about club exclusive categories as well as bundles and other product related topics.

Content Management & Email Marketing
Occurs on the fourth Wednesday of every month,10am – 12pm.  This is a detailed look at the HTML editor capabilities in the RTE.  Learn about hyperlinks, image management, documents and so much more.  This also includes a section on using the Email blast tool.

For those of you who are unable to attend an in-house session, we can host a Webinar training session.  In addition, we will have shortly, recorded modular sessions available for you to view online. We’ll keep you posted as to when that will become available.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

A trip to the wine country to visit a winery = a tank of gas

A bottle of 2004 Pinot Noir = $35.00

Exceptional Customer Service from the winery staff = PRICELESS

Definitions by www.wikipedia.com
• ‘Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.’

• ‘Customer satisfaction is a business term which is used to capture the idea of measuring how satisfied an enterprise’s customers are with the organization’s efforts in a marketplace. It is seen as a key business performance indicator and is part of the four perspectives of a Balanced Scorecard.’

Exceptional Customer Service is having the ability to identify a customers needs, and then exceeding their expectations in fulfilling them. A successful business recognizes the importance of cultivating customer relationships and knows that customer loyalty and satisfaction is one of the most valuable assets a company can have.

Customer service is important to a winery because without customers there wouldn’t be a business. Listed below are some benefits from offering excellent service:
• Enhanced customer experience increases your public image and gives you a leading edge over your competition.
• Repeat business and customer loyalty will lead to an increase in sales.
• Employee success offers greater job satisfaction and a higher retention rate.

How can a winery develop a strategy for offering excellent service?

First, take the time to learn about your customers, understand their wants and needs. Dedicate the time to turn a new visitor into a returning customer. A loyal customer will bring in repeat business and often times will be your best advocate when recommending your winery to others. 

Train your staff and invest in their success. Make sure your employees are not only knowledgeable about your products, but they know how to sell them. Write up a training policy for new employees to bring them up to speed as quickly as possible. Monitor the sales from your tasting room and look for ways to increase your opportunities.

Be proactive and solicit feedback – touch base with your customers and ask for suggestions.  Keep it simple and listen to what your customer’s are saying. It will help you when it’s time to refocus your marketing strategies and realign your service expectations. Be responsive and embrace the opportunity to improve.

As our Director of Support Services, Stephen Mutch said, “The consistent delivery of superior service requires the careful design and execution of a whole system of activities that includes the right people, culture, technology and processes.”

Remember customers do matter. A loyal and exceptionally satisfied customer is well worth their weight in gold!