Earlier this month I spent 4 days in Eastern Washington’s Yakima Valley wine tasting. We rented an RV and set out on the road with some friends. For those of you who know that we (hubby and I) are avid boaters and home winemakers (hubby’s hobby) you might expect that we had a little bit of fun. (Big Grin!)

After the few hour drive across the state – we arrived at our first winery in the Yakima area. The tasting room server was great, we were very well received, and our journey started off on a positive note. Over the four days there was a lot of laughs a lot of wine and some insights for me.  As we moved from location to location we noticed a trend.

The trend was that the better the tasting room staff was at sharing about the facility and engaging with us during our “tasting experience” the more we were inclined to buy before we left their establishment. Makes sense right? (And of course we liked and wanted the product).

Well, there were at least a handful of places that the experience was less than fair and I even walked out of one place because I couldn’t take the chill in the air anymore – as if she (the pourer) was doing us a favor by being there and we were inconveniencing her.

I won’t detail all of the trip but I wanted to make this point:

Customer Service is Critical to Your Sales!

As a small business owner most of the time YOU are that customer service person (along with chief cook and bottle washer).

Are you doing your best to take care of your customers?

Do they feel engaged in the experience and enjoy working with you?

Are you upbeat and friendly when working with them or do you treat them as if they are a hassle in your life?

If yes, AWESOME! Keep going. If you have a slight hesitation to any of the questions – then you have a place to start to seek to improve.

Keep at it. Keep going. Keep up the good work!