Top 3 Under-Utilized Features on Vin65

As an Account Manager and Trainer at Vin65, one of the best parts of my job is showing wineries how to get more out of our tools. Beyond the basics of wine club, online store and point-of-sale, there are many features that can have a big impact on your direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales. But with so much to do, it can be hard to figure out what to focus on first. Here are my top 3 recommendations that will help you grow sales, provide great customer service and work more effectively with your team.

1. Carrot Engine Upsell Tools

You probably already train your tasting room staff on how to upsell in person. With our Carrot Engine, you can recreate that same experience in your online store. Carrots act as an automated prompt - based on things like what other items are in the cart, how many, whether the customer is a wine club member or not - and encourage people to buy more or other products in your store.

A popular example is a volume shipping discount. Let's say you offer $10 flat rate shipping on orders of 6+ bottles. If someone has at least 2 bottles in their cart, you can display a Carrot encouraging them to buy additional wines to qualify for the offer.

You can also use Carrots for your internal team. For example, you might want your tasting room staff to offer a library tasting to customers who have purchased library wines in the past. Or you might want your telesales team to offer a club membership to those with a high lifetime value.

Setting up Carrots is easy, and you can use our handy Quick Configure tool to easily set up the most popular options. Learn how.

2. Customer Relationship Management Tools

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools are a powerful way to take your customer service to the next level. Consumers increasingly expect a personalized experience when they walk in the door, and relying on your staff to remember all your club members by name isn't practical. That's where our CRM tools come into play, in particular Flags and Tasks.

Flags are special notes attached to each customer that you can use to share key information with your teammates. For example, you might want to remind a club member they have an order to pick up, or that their credit card is expiring soon. Perhaps you have customers who prefer a specific table or need VIP treatment. When you set up a Flag, any person who opens that customer's record on your POS or Admin Panel will immediately see it.

Tasks are a great way to assign specific To Do items to others - or to yourself - all within Vin65. This is especially useful if you have part-time staff who don't have work email addresses. Here are some examples of how you can use Tasks:

1. A wine club member comes into the tasting room over the weekend and has a question about their next shipment. Assign a Task to your wine club manager to follow up the following week.
2. A guest left a jacket on your patio and you want your colleague to call them to let them know.
3. You received a special request from a customer but didn't have time to execute it. Set a reminder for yourself to handle it later.

Get started setting up Flags and Tasks.

3. Automated Email Marketing

Email is the single most effective digital marketing tool available. But it takes time to set up effective email offers and newsletters. Let our system do some of the heavy lifting for you. With Vin65 Action Emails, you can automatically send out key communications to clients without anyone on your team needing to do anything.

For example, set up reminders to go out to club members 60, 30 and 10 days before their credit card expires - and 10, 30 and 60 days after, if necessary! To build loyalty, send a "Happy Club Anniversary" email with a special coupon or other offer.

One of the most effective Action Emails is the "Thank You" email, which goes out after a customer has visited your tasting room. Use this email to say thank you for coming, give them a special offer and encourage them to buy wine on your website. This single email has a 7.5% conversion to purchase rate, which is nearly three times our system average. By implementing it, here's how that can affect your bottom line:

With our Quick Configure tool, you can easily set up some of the most popular Action Emails. Get started now.

Want to calculate how much revenue you could generate by turning on the Thank You email? Download your DTC Checklist which includes a handy calculator and more: