Developing a Customer Service Survey for Your Tasting Room

Improvements or alterations you make to your tasting room experience should include customers’ thoughts and feelings. This process should consist of taking with tasting room visitors and developing a survey to capture customer responses that you can refer to from time to time. If you have a mailing list or wine club, involve these customers and include some questions on the wine club enrollment form to learn about new members' interests and preferences.

Collecting survey responses via the Internet is another option. Post questions on your website, on social media sites, and use one of the free online programs to design a simple survey and collect a limited number of responses. Several "free survey tools" are available online and can be easily found by typing the phrases in a web browser search bar. While they are free to use, there were likely be a limit on the number of questions you can ask and/or the number of surveys you can collect. Paid subscriptions offer benefits ranging from being able to customize the look of the survey to redirecting participants to your website after they complete the questionnaire and having access to technical phone support and analytical assistance.

What do you want to learn from your customers?

Regardless of the method used to collect responses, a key to a successful survey is to focus on two to three objectives and design questions that are clear and can be completed in a reasonable amount of time. Pretest the questions with a small group of wine consumers and ask them if any questions were confusing (and, if so, what information is needed to answer the question correctly) and if they felt that the survey "took to long to complete," "was just about right," or "too short." If the number of questions you want to ask exceeds participants’ tolerance, you can always ask them in a future survey.

Consider including some of these questions when you design your survey.

1. Why are you visiting the tasting room? Is it to learn how to select wine, look at the facilities for a future event, and/or buy wine for a gift? Responses can help you decide whether to offer "wine tasting 101" classes, host events and private functions (if space allows), or sell wine gift baskets, giftware, and gift certificates.
2. Their interest in events and activities that you have been thinking about offering. Responses could identify potential wine club members or if events could encourage more frequent visits.
3. What restaurants in the area do you regularly visit? What events and activities do you participate and how do you learn about these events? Responses could identify viable outlets for your wine and festivals or celebrations where you could have a presence. Asking customers how they learn about these events and activities can help discover avenues through which to promote the winery.
4. What other businesses are you visiting while in the area? Answer to this question can help identify businesses with whom you can cross-promote, which could further build your customer base.

Other questions and issues to consider:

• date and time of day (morning, afternoon, evening) of their most recent visit to your tasting room,
• who they visited the tasting room with,
• if they made a purchase and what they purchased,
• how they would rate their overall tasting experience, interaction with tasting room staff, products available for purchase, visual appeal of the tasting room, etc., using scales (e.g., 1=very unappealing to 5=very appealing),
• if they were first-time visitors, how they learned about the tasting room and what encouraged them to visit,
• how often they visit, and
• demographic and socio-economic status of the survey respondent, psychographics, and behaviors (e.g., age range, number of other adults in the household who consume wine, other alcoholic beverages they consume), and other useful questions (e.g., distance traveled from home to visit the tasting room, other businesses they visited in the area).

Continue learning from your customers

Understand customer needs:
How might interests differ between "new" customers and existing ones" Why did they decide to purchase wine from you? When do they consume wine and what are they consuming? Has their consumption changed due to the pandemic?

Connecting with them:
What social media sites do they use to follow businesses? Do they have an interest in posts about wine cocktail recipes, meal pairing, food trends and recipes, health/wellness and wine, etc.?

On-premise:
What can you do at your tasting room to help them feel comfortable in preparation for a visit? What messages, that they received from businesses, were reassuring/helpful during the pandemic? Aside from wine, what else would they have an interest in purchasing.

Surveys can also help determine potential demand for new tasting room products, identify tasting room and employee-related problems, and direct future efforts. If once active customers have become inactive, send them a survey along with a "we miss you, please visit again" coupon and ask why they are no longer purchasing or are purchasing less frequently from you.

Encouraging participation 

It will be necessary to remind consumers about the survey and that their participation will help you make their tasting room experience much richer. In most cases, relying solely on a consumer's interest in your business to motivate them to respond to your questions is not realistic. Even when you ask a consumer to answer questions during their tasting room visit, you are competing against another activity for their valuable time. To encourage participation, offer an incentive. Offer free tastings, discounts on merchandise and wine, or access to an exclusive winery tour and barrel tasting. Give some thought as to what your tasting room visitors would appreciate and what you could realistically offer based on what the incentive will "cost" you.