The Neiman Marcus brand has earned its well-deserved reputation as a luxury goods retailer providing excellent service. I would guess that many fine wine collectors are also Neiman Marcus customers just based on their common demographic profile. So when I read the article today from Wines & Vines describing a Silicon Valley Bank-sponsored marketing seminar for wineries by former CEO Richard Marcus, I was particularly interested in the wisdom being shared.
Here are a few nuggets which resonated with me in the context of fine wine retailing:
- Building a luxury brand - "Offering a top-quality product along with exceptional customer service are essential elements to building a luxury brand." This is exactly what Vinfolio is striving to do and why our guiding principle is "Fine wine, finer service."
- Paying attention to customers - "Each and every one of those customers has value. Nobody can predict what any given customer is capable of spending. This means knowing each client."
- Personalize communications with customers - "The question is, are you talking to all of those customers the same way, or are you shaping your communications depending on how that customer has behaved with you?" We use wine specialist staff, analytical tools, an enterprise-class marketing software platform and knowledge of what wines are in a customer's VinCellar account to achieve our goal of personalized (i.e., relevant) communications with customers.
Your opinion: What else do you believe constitutes excellence in fine wine retailing? Please add your comments to this post.
