I love happy endings, don’t you? I’ve now written a few posts about an issue I had with one of my wine clubs. I wrote them, one, to show an example of what not to do, and two, to then share the unhappy resolution that I thought was the end of the topic. You can read those installments here and here.
Not wanting to leave out any of the details, I wanted to let everyone know that I received an email from one of the owners of Bella last night and spoke with her on the phone today. Lynn was incredibly gracious and acknowledged that they really were trying to accommodate requests from club members who wanted more wines per shipment, and didn’t really pause to think how that may prove to be an unbearable burden for all club members, especially given current economic realities.
She assured me that as soon as she arrived at Bella today, she would make sure that all club members had the option to remain at the original 6 bottle shipment terms of the club. This is an excellent move in my opinion. I wholeheartedly support having several different wine club levels that will allow a winery to accommodate the needs of a diverse membership. For me, the 6 bottle option was perfect, I had no interest in a change. Getting to try 12 wines a year works really well for me and doesn’t overburden me with wine costs.
So I am extremely happy to report that I phoned Lynn this morning, and she has placed me back into a 6 bottle shipment status, and worked with me to decide which of the wines I would like to receive in this shipment. Kudos to Bella for monitoring their brand name and working to resolve this situation in a timely manner. I am extremely happy to be able to remain a member of the club, as I absolutely love the wines from Bella and have written about them many times in the past. I’m sure you’ll read more about the excellent wines of Bella here in the near future.
Filed under: Wine |
Wannabe Wino Wine Blog 
Sniff. I love happy endings! Lynn certainly is a class act and I am not at all surprised that once she got into the situation, a creative and positive resolution was reached. Yea for the consumer!
Hooray for customer service! I had followed this string of posts pretty closely because I was curious if the winery would weigh in. I’m delighted to hear that Bella is on top of their brand management and more importantly, interested in putting their customers first. I personally will seek out the wines not only because they’ve been so highly recommended but also because I’ve heard this positive story. Kudos to the winery and kudos to you for reporting the whole story!
I’m with Lenn Thompson (via Twitter: http://twitter.com/LENNDEVOURS/) that this may have been resolved sooner had you used Bella’s name sooner (as in the original post).
And as for my snarky comments in your prior posts, I hope they remain there as a warning to other wineries who aren’t clear about what brand management means in the age of social media.
Glad to hear everything has worked out for the best!
I am really pleased to hear that there was such a good outcome on this. All it takes is for the owners to be aware – clearly she either got your email, or is astute enough to understand the wonders of Google Alerts!
I’m glad she acknowledged that they hadn’t really thought the whole thing through – I hope this will serve as a lesson for future changes they make. THINK first! Act later!
Kudos to Bella?
Graciously resolved or not, I don’t buy the fact that they didn’t think of the burden the additional wine was going to put on club members. If they didn’t think of that, then they have much larger issues.
From what I’ve read– They made a bad business decision, offered their customers zero alternative to the larger allocations, got caught, and went back to biz as usual.
I’m shocked you went back.
Thanks for the comments. Randy, I have no intention of removing any comments, so they will stay. As I’ve said many times now, I really wanted to try to resolve this with the winery and did think that calling them out in my post would simply serve to distract from the point.
Dirty-This is the resolution I wanted. In my original post I stated that I wanted to have the option to remain at 6 bottles and stay in the club, had they offered me that when I first contacted them, I would have stayed then, and my follow up post would have been a resolution post. I agree, they made a bad decision, but they resolved it, not just for me, but for any member who would prefer to stay at the current level. I adore the wine, and a bad business decision doesn’t change that, especially when they have resolved the issue.
Great news, though I am a bit confused (maybe you said it in your tweets today). They contacted you first… or did you have to send them an email about what not to do and then they resolved it?
Shana-I called last week to ask about the change and remaining at the 6 bottle level. They said that wasn’t an option. So I called back on Tuesday and canceled. Last night, I got an email to my blog email (which is not my personal email associated with the club) from Bella’s owner, apologizing, and acknowledging the error on the part of the winery for not thinking this through. The owner said she would fix the situation as soon as she got in tomorrow by allowing members to opt to stay at their current 6 bottle level. She didn’t know who I was when she sent me that email. So I called this morning and spoke with her and moved back to the 6 bottle shipments.