Hospitality Excellence

Just to balance the scales, since I wrote to you about a hospitality blunder last week, let's head into the Christmas week with a super-feel-good hospitality experience I was able to share with 5 friends a couple of weeks ago, none of whom had ever attended this particular event, with or without me, before. The evening was, in one word, STELLAR.

A Shout-Out to Support Local!

Most of my friends love to support local and we are pretty lucky to live in Canadian Wine Country and happy to support the local wineries; the struggle is real lol. All wineries offer memberships where you commit to a certain amount of annual purchases and in turn for nice little perks like discounts and private events. As a member of this particular winery I am treated to an annual tasting experience for 6 people that is paired with little bites that showcase the finer (and much pricier!) wines being served that are not available in the usual tasting experience.

Red Carpet Treatment

We arrived and were immediately greeted and brought to our private table over by the fireplace. Our hostess came over with a small glass of "welcome" bubbles (who doesn't love that!?) for each of us and introduced herself to my guests who had not met her before. I've known her for years now and am always very happy to chat with her; she has more wine knowledge in her than most libraries. She has an education in and experience with the wine-making industry that surpasses almost anyone I've ever met, yet you'd never know it the way she connects with everyone at their own level. Her ability to read the group creates the feeling of the "personal touch" of a completely customized experience as she connects with each guest in the group, carefully listening and responding to everyone's questions and comments. The tasting went forward seamlessly, each fabulous wine paired with another tasty little bite and she explained the reasons for the choices and why they worked so well in our mouths together. At the end of the tasting, if we weren't already so impressed with the level of fabulosity (one of my fun-fave words!), she treated us to two more tastes of wonderful new, sensational (and very pricey!) products. We all left a little bit in awe of the experience we just had... but not before leaving her a generous gratuity. We felt like we had been given extra-special treatment, that our support was completely valued and I, personally, felt pretty awesome about what I had just been able to do for my group of friends.

And the awards go to...

For any locals who haven't guessed it already, this was at Okanagan's adored Quails Gate Winery and our hostess was none other than the iconic sommelier Louise Dabisza.

A lesson to Hospitality Employees and Owners

My take-away is this: you don't have to give away the farm, kiss anyone's ass or jump through burning hoops. All you have to is be grateful for your guests and treat them that way .... Of course, if you read my book, you'll discover the compilation of "bullshit reviews" from people who were just always going to find something to crab about; there are always going to be "difficult" customers and to preserve my own good mood, I'm not talking about them today. At this time, the super-stressful holiday season, but also every day of your service career, is the best time to show people respect, kindness and gratitude for their selection of your business over others. It's also the best way to ensure your success and grow your own super-fan club of returning customers.

Wishing everyone, but particularly my fellow past, present or future B&B owners, a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!