WineCountry Brief: The customer you already have

Apr 23

The customer you already have

No. 3 · April 23, 2026

A quick weekly read shaped by what we're seeing across lodging, wineries, and hospitality.

I stumbled across one of my favorite TV ads of all time the other day.

The ad is simple. The head of a company gathers his team and tells them that one of their oldest customers just fired them. The customer said they did not know the company anymore. And the boss says he knows exactly why. They used to do business face-to-face, with a handshake. Now it is a call or a fax. Which, if you know what a fax is, congratulations, you are in my age bracket.

So they make a decision. They are going to personally visit every customer they have. More than 200 cities. Just to reconnect.

It is a great ad, but it barely feels like an ad now. It feels like a business lesson people forgot.

I keep seeing versions of that problem everywhere right now.

Everyone is working on acquisition. Better targeting. Better automation. Better outbound. Better systems to find the next customer. And a lot of businesses are getting worse at the part that comes after someone actually becomes one.

Less personal touch. Less follow-up. Less effort to make people feel known.

That feels especially true right now, when everything is getting more digital, more automated, more AI-driven. Which is ironic, because this may be the exact moment people want a business to feel more human, not less.

New customers matter. Of course they do. But existing customers are still the lifeblood of a company. And I think a lot of businesses are underestimating how much growth is hiding there right now.

These are not names in a database. These are people who already raised their hand. They came to you. They trusted you. They spent money with you. The opportunity is not to market at them more efficiently. It is to know them better and serve them better.

That is starting to feel less like good manners and more like strategy.

Thanks for reading,
Mike

The WineCountry Business Podcast

Episode 2: Paul Mabray - Building Wine Tech

Twenty-five minutes with one of the original builders in wine technology on what actually makes technology useful, usable, and worth adopting.

Paul has been around wine tech from the beginning, and this conversation is a good one. He talks about what real product-market fit looks like in wine, why adoption matters more than hype, and how better systems and better data can help businesses stay more connected to the people they are trying to serve. A useful listen for anyone thinking about how technology can support a better business, not just a busier one.

Listen on WineCountry Business, Apple Podcast, and Spotify.

What We’re Seeing + Hearing + Learning

1) Your customers are people, not a list
These are people who visited your property, bought your product, booked your experience, and trusted you enough to spend money with you. The work now is to know them better and serve them better. A phone call. A thoughtful note. A relevant invitation. A follow-up that sounds like a person wrote it. That is how relationships grow.

2) The second transaction matters more than most businesses think
A tasting room visit, hotel stay, dinner, or first purchase should start the story, not finish it. The opportunity is in what happens next. Whether that customer comes back, buys again, brings someone with them, or becomes part of the brand more deeply.

3) The best use of technology is better memory
Technology is most useful when it helps a team remember more, respond better, and serve people more personally. Used well, it can help a team know what someone bought, what they cared about, when they last engaged, and what might make the next interaction feel more relevant. AI is useful when it gives the team better context, not just more automation. The goal is to support the relationship, not replace it.

Book Recommendation

Never Lose a Customer Again — Joey Coleman

Coleman's premise is almost comically simple. Businesses spend a fortune courting a customer, close the sale, and then the next morning act like they have been married for fifteen years. The attention stops. The follow-up gets shorter. The honeymoon is over before it started.

His research: 20% to 70% of new customers quietly leave within the first 100 days. Not because the product was bad. Because nobody kept showing up.

This is the right book for this moment because it forces the question most operators are avoiding — what does your business actually do on day 14, day 45, day 80 of a customer relationship? The answer, for most of us, is embarrassingly little.

Short, practical, and slightly uncomfortable. Usually how you know it is working.

Worth Your Time

I wrote a piece last year called Human-First Customer Service is the Future: A Contrarian View. It argues that too many businesses are replacing human connection with efficiency theater and calling it progress.

The short version: empathy, creativity, and thoughtful service still matter, probably more than ever. And businesses that combine good systems with real human care are going to have an advantage that is harder to copy than most people think.

A Thought to Leave With

“The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention.”
- Kevin Kelly

See you next week.

WineCountry Media