Last month’s DTC Symposium hosted Tracy McArdle @ Jessup Cellars, Neil Bason @ Goosecross and Malani Anderson @ Turley Wine Cellars in a moderated panel to speak about the importance of reservations at each of their wineries. I was lucky enough to moderate the session.
Why are reservations important to them? They cited a number of reasons, of which here are five:
- Highest profit from reserved sit-down tastings than any other visit (walk-in or reservation) type
- Efficient data collection of visitor information tied to purchase for future analysis & targeted marketing
- Reservation visitor counts shows overall trending, reducing costs with better staff & space planning
- Effective mix balancing of wine club vs. general consumer visitors, boosting club conversion
- Tracking referrals -who is sending these people to the winery- to reward & enhance those relationships
The above reasons are straightforward and relatively obvious, right? What isn’t obvious is the one common thread these wineries share: they all use eCellar Reservations Manager – a complete reservations calendar that is fully integrated with the rest of their eCellar transactional parts (CRM, POS, Club, eCommerce, and email Campaign Manager.)
Other reservation system options, such as CellarPass, VinoVisit or Tock don’t even compare. The reason is because eCellar Reservations Manager’s live data sharing connection between sales channels & departments enables the winery to easily identify, target and market to consumers based on visit & purchase history, ultimately leading to predictive analysis to capitalize on emerging trends unique to their brand.
To date, nearly 100% of our client base utilize eCellar Reservations Manager for not only scheduling consumer visits, but also employee lunches, breaks & internal winery functions. It’s a one-stop calendar system that allows not only visitors to book online, but whose integration with all the other DTC parts gives winery staff and management visibility of the big picture flow of human and financial capital in and out of the winery.
If you’d like to learn more about eCellar Reservations Manager and how your winery can boost profit from reservations, please contact me at 707-942-9700 x201 or paul@ecellar1.com.
