How to win customers - and lose them too (part one)

It may surprise some readers to know that approximately one wine bottle in ten consumed does not taste the way the maker intended and has some type of fault. Top of the list of these faults are TCA (commonly known as cork taint,) then there is oxidisation as well as other faults that occur during winemaking.

If you have a wine cellar, it’s a frightening thought to realise that up to 10% of it is crappy wine that should not be drunk. Some people are very sensitive to bottle faults and some are not. I have been to dinners with other wine geeks where a bottle of wine was mildly corked and no one realised it was corked, so it’s easy even for experienced wine drinkers to miss a minor fault.

The majority of these faults actually occur when the wine is made. If the wine is infected with TCA from the cork that happens the moment the cork goes into the bottle so it’s a manufacturing defect. Under Australian Law, the consumer is legally entitled to a satisfactory replacement or a refund. Its this process of returning “off wine” that I will investigate over the next couple of journal entries, because it’s worth while seeing how some companies react.

In years gone by in some ways it was simple. Most people used to buy the majority of their wine from one shop and most wines were in stock most of the time. So if you opened, say for example, an 83 Chateau Roo Juice and it was corked, you would take it back to your local bottle shop where you had purchased it and they replaced it with the then current 86 vintage.

With the advent of Internet shopping, many of the early e-commerce sites going broke, increase of winery mailing list sales, and wines being sold out within days of release, it’s a very different proposition to return an off bottle of wine today than it was say five or ten years ago.

Firstly, a few pointers to keep in mind if you have an “off bottle” to return.

1. Keep as much of the wine as possible and even pour any wine from the glasses back into the bottle.
2. As soon as convenient, try and write down exactly what you find “wrong” about the smell and taste of the wine.
3. Make contact with the supplier as soon as possible to try and resolve the issue.
4. Its worth while remembering that you can’t return a bottle of wine just because you don’t like or it failed to live up to your expectations.
5. Likewise, if you drink a bottle that has been badly stored and is off for that reason; or if you open a bottle 1983 Chateau Jungle Juice that should have been drunk 20 years ago, you have no recourse to a return. There has to be an actual fault with the wine.

In terms of your options there are a number of ways to go about obtaining a replacement. If you know where you purchased the wine and it’s convenient, you can take it back to the place of sale. If that’s not convenient, you can always contact the winery as they have the ultimate responsibility to replace the defective wine.

This is where it gets interesting. The differing attitudes of wine companies towards the return of faulty bottles is amazing and I intend to share a few experiences with you, telling you about the good, the not so good and those that have an unhelpful attitude.

Firstly, my local bottle shops are all fine, they happily replace off bottles with no fuss, provided they have a replacement in stock. Likewise, on the one or two occasions that I have contacted Bert and told him I had a corked bottle that I had purchased from Winestar, he gladly replaced them with no fuss or bother.

But then I am well known to all of these people. When you are not known, it can get harder.

Lets take two examples that are at opposite extremities of customer service. In June last year I opened a bottle of 91 Petaluma Coonawarra and it was corked. A fax was sent to Petaluma the next day explaining the problem and offering to return the defective bottle. Petaluma rang my shop within hours (whilst I was out) and asked for a delivery address. A few days later a bottle of Petaluma 91 Coonawarra arrived as a replacement. Now that’s a class act, no fuss and it was replaced with the same vintage, even though the wine was ten years old.

Also in June last year I opened a bottle of 94 Chapel Hill The Vicar and it clearly had a problem. Next day I faxed the winery all the details of the problem and offered to return the defective bottle. Later that day I received my original fax back with a note that had been hand written below my original faxed letter. In summary it said the conclusions drawn from my analysis of the wine were probably incorrect and the chances were it was another fault that was responsible for the wine being off. No offer was made to replace the wine.

Now I had been drinking Chapel Hill wines for over a decade and in that time had purchased many hundreds of bottles of their product. As well as that, I had recommended their wines to lots of friends that had also bought them by the case. Many favourable tasting notes had been written on the wine forums and I always went out of my way to buy their wines and try them as soon as they were released.

What prompted this Journal was that last night I opened a bottle of Chapel Hill 96 The Vicar and it was also off. Since June last year I have opened 13 bottles of Chapel Hill Wine and four out of thirteen have been off. Lets just put that down to a statistical aberration as over the years I have had very few dud Chapel Hill, so its just the law of averages catching up. The fact that the winery doesn’t want to take responsibility and avoided offering a replacement bottle means they have now lost a loyal customer and one with a big mouth that can tell a few thousand wine lovers (via this journal) of both my good and bad wine experiences.

Next week we will look and see how the big four rate in this area.

Cheers

Ric

How to win customers - and lose them too (part two)

Last week we examined the process of returning “off bottles” and the difference in attitude by two small wineries. This week we will look at the big four and see how they compare and measure up.

Firstly, in the past when I have had to return “off bottles” to BRL Hardy, the results have been mixed. Whilst they do get replaced, it can take far to long, correspondence on occasions has had to be followed up and generally it’s a bit of a performance and a hassle. But at least the bottles are always replaced. They would get a below average rating for customer service in this area from me.

My limited experiences with dud bottles from Orlando have shown a reasonable level of service so I won’t comment further.

As Southcorp is the largest wine business in the country, I could almost write a book in my dealing with them (and their subsidiaries) over the decades, but we will keep these comments to recent practices.

The Southcorp customer service staff are normally prompt and efficient and all dud bottles do get replaced. The process, rules and regulations however don’t always make it a very pleasant experience or as easy as it could be.  As a fairly reasonable percentage of my cellar consists of Penfolds, Rosemount, Wynns and their other brands lets just say I am well known to some of the customer service staff at Southcorp.

In the majority of cases in my dealings with them when I have a defective bottle, the process works like this:-

• You ring or fax them details.
• They ring you back to discuss the problem.
• They send a courier satchel with shipping box to you.
• You place defective bottle in box provided, ring their courier and send the bottle back to them.
• Once the defective bottle is received, they send a replacement.
• They then report on the defect.

(Occasionally they just replace it without having to go through the rigmarole but that’s the exception rather than the rule.)

All very straight forward except one wonders how much sense it makes to pay two sets of courier fees to get a an inexpensive bottle of open wine back, rather than believing the customer in the first place.

And “believing the customer” brings me to my next point. On some occasions when I have tried to describe what I think is the problem with the wine (to the Southcorp customer service staff) over the phone. On the last occasion, the person at the other end of the phone, who has not smelt or tasted the wine, has stated that my opinion sounds like it may be incorrect and the problem is likely to be something else.

But there is more to it than that attitude. On many of occasions when I have returned wine to Southcorp stating I though a bottle wine had “x” problem I was informed ‘after it had been checked by their staff’ that the fault that I had complained about had not been found.

The other most consistent comment was that no fault was found but the wine was oxidised.

Now its interesting to note that on a numerous occasions when I have found wines to be defective, winemakers and other wine companies have often agreed with my analysis, but for some reason I keep getting my analysis of Southcorp wines wrong. When I thought a bottle of St Henri was corked and send it back recently, they report it was found not to be corked. I just wonder if they used a mass spectrometer, a gas chronometer, winemaker or a page in a customer complaints manual to come up with their findings.

I fully admit I am not an expert and do get it wrong, but what is interesting is that according to Southcorp, I almost invariably get it wrong. They say perceptions are everything, and my perception (be it right or be it wrong) is that whilst Southcorp does replace any defective bottles, I get the very subtle feeling they would rather not make you feel very welcome in doing so.

However I must say that I wouldn’t be surprised if Southcorp read last weeks Journal as when I reported a dud 96 Rosemount GSM on Monday, they did the right thing and replaced it with out having to go the return rigmarole. And that’s what this Journal is all about from my perspective, getting a fair deal for the wine buying public.

The final one of the big four, Beringer Blass have a very good attitude and are very helpful when returning off bottles. They have one person who manages the whole process and she is a gem. Whilst in some circumstances they want the off bottle back, in some circumstances they just happily send a replacement.

Some time ago, I had trouble with some 97 Mt Ida Shiraz that I suspected was a problem that would have affected the whole batch. The bottle shop replaced the six bottles with six new ones and when I opened the first bottle it had the same problem. Beringer Blass was contacted and after much investigation by the winery, it was determined the batch was in fact defective and the bottles were replaced with the 98 vintage. No hedging, no fuss and no trying to cover their arses, they admitted they had a problem and fixed it. Full marks for honesty.

In summary, if you are convinced that a wine is “a dud” with a manufacturing defect, send it back. The wine companies should realise that those organisations that go out of their way to treat their customers well when they have a reasonable complaint will be rewarded with customer loyalty. Those that do what is “legally required” but don’t smile in the process are loosing an opportunity to build customer loyalty and the more officious the staff and the more difficult the process, the lower the good will generated.

Who would impress you most, a company (like Petaluma) that replaces a ten year old corked wine with a bottle from the same vintage or a company (like Chapel Hill) that doesn’t even offer a replacement despite a faxed complaint about a bottle of their top wine?

Cheers

Ric

Copyright © Ric Einstein 2003