customer service and craft beer

He reasked the question one entire year later. If that counts as too repetitive and your business is that monolithically static then i have to wonder why the brewery bothers to maintain a social media presence at all.

And drop the 'special *********' nonsense. He simply and politely asked if they had anything planned. He didnt ask them to do anything "special" for him.

 

Not sure if these isolated incidents paint the entire brewery. Try another avenue before giving up (phone call?)

 

As someone who works in the Hospitality industry I find their response to be totally unacceptable.

If someone on my team was to respond to a guest in that manner we'd be having an in depth conversation likely followed by some paperwork to be signed.

I understand that from a business perspective these kinds of messages and requests can get overwhelming and time consuming. In this case they'd have been better off just not responding at all rather than making themselves look like a bunch of assholes.

Vote with your dollars!

 

It's interesting to see the differences between what people in the US expect from customer service and here in The Netherlands. Making screenshots of a reply like this? And then people calling the employee a '****' and 'rats' and so on? Ofcourse he could have been nicer, but I also could have ignored the question (which is what I would have done) and obviously asking these questions is seeking preferential treatment, but oh the horror when someone calls you out on it...

 

I was involved in customer service at one time. I would never give such a rude answer regardless of circumstances. Nor would I allow it from anyone under me. Your customers are the reason for you being there no matter what your position is. It really IS that fucking simple.

 

It's a sad state of affairs when doing your fucking job is now considered 'preferential treatment'. No matter how dumb the quesiton could be (and this was a very polite question and in no way asking for preferential treatment), if you don't like answering questions from the people paying your bills, get a new job. I get that this guy could just be having a bad day as we all can, and that it can be annoying to asnwer the same question..but you answer the question and then if you want to be a dick, do it after you say "sorry, but we have a policy of only announcing bottle releases the day of. thanks for your understanding".

 

Can't both the OP and SARA's social media person be wrong? I completely agree that the company's responses were well out of line and unacceptable. However, the OP did himself no favors when he basically asked the same question in roughly the same manner as last year. Even more so, their response to the previous question was on the same screen he used this year. Had he asked if their policy had changed first, maybe he wouldn't have given the brewery a chance to flip out.

He knew the brewery had a policy of not pre-announcing bottle releases, but his question ignored that knowledge. The customer is not always right. That shouldn't, and doesn't, excuse the response, though.

I'm also very shocked the brewery referenced their previous communications.

 

So you checked their fb daily right?

He said they don't announce releases and you asked him to do that.

He wasn't exactly the most professional in his response, but you also kinda pushed him to that by asking a question he probably gets all the time, even though the question has an answer provided already.

 

Hasn't this Brewery been brought up on here before for customer service issues?

 

I think you summed it up very well. If I had wanted to ask that question again, I wouldn't have done so in the same manner that showed the prior response on the same screen. I probably would've given them a call instead.

I'm not surprised by their response, though, either. I honestly think there are a ton of breweries that have bad customer service, like they are going out of their way to serve me. Maybe it's got to do with bad/annoying customers, but I know plenty of other industries & businesses with bad/annoying customers that don't act like the response the OP received.

 

I have traveled both solo and with family and have visited many breweries along the way. One of the only times I called a brewery to see if something that was posted as being on sale was still on sale was when I was traveling through Chicago and saw that 3 floyds had Zombie Dust on sale. It was 3 pm and I was unfamiliar how 3 floyds' conducts their in-house sales and if it was sold out, I wanted to avoid the traffic, etc. and save time. All I got was a recording so I went anyway and luckily they were not sold out.

My point is, if it's information that you know should be posted somewhere, like hours of operation or what's available, look for it, follow links and don't be so goddamn lazy and just call the brewery. Yes, the response the OP got was uncalled for, but on the other hand, if you've never been on the other end of "customer service" put yourself in the place of that responder on a aggravating day and you may feel differently.

 

I get all that, I'm just saying if a brewery has a "no heads-up" policy, then it's not really reasonable to get bent out of shape when they don't make an exception for you. I could be wrong, but I don't even think their elusive club's members even get advanced notice for public releases.

 

I get all that, I'm just saying if a brewery has a "no heads-up" policy, then it's not really reasonable to get bent out of shape when they don't make an exception for you. I could be wrong, but I don't even think their elusive club's members even get advance

Just to be clear, I agree that there's nothing wrong with asking. However, if you get a response that they don't do then you ask them again and they're consistent with their response (could have worded it better, tho) then it's time to accept it and move on.

 

It seems clear to me that the OP never would have started this thread if the response had been something along the lines of "sorry bro, policy is still the same as last year". I dont see any indication that he's upset about the policy itself.

 

You're not very familiar with the economics of luxury goods, are you?

 

I love all my local breweries. I've had conversations with almost all their staff and people who run their respective social media accounts.

They have always gone out of their way to help me when I have questions and even held some releases for me for when I can't make the 2-3hr drive to a can release cause of work and such. They know I'm loyal and they know I'm not there just to stock up on beer to trade. They know I love to support the local guy.

That being said that person was an asshat and I would no longer give them my business.