Enhancements to WineWeb Services

WineWeb continually enhances the feature set to benefit its clients. Here's some of the latest enhancements. Be sure to check out our previous enhancements or our enhancement list for the full list.

Future-Proofing QR Codes

WineWeb understands that QR Codes are about more than printing a code, and has integrated the generation and management of QR Codes into its service offerings. As QR Codes can have a long life, especially if printed on a wine bottle label, a winery needs to have a strategy to ensure that the code is readable throughout its life. WineWeb's integration of QR Codes into its services sought to satisfy three goals:

1. The ability to easily generate QR Codes for any wine item, non-wine item and event.
2. The underlying URL pointed to by the QR Code must provide the ability to display different web pages over its lifetime to allow for promotions and other winery-specific needs.
3. The page that is displayed must be suitable to the device that it is displayed upon.

The ability for a winery to generate a QR Code for a product or event was the easy part of this development effort. Simply clicking on a link for any item displays a QR Code, which can then be copied into printed promotional materials.

When a person scans a QR Code with a mobile device, the website URL is typically displayed before the user is routed to the web page. WineWeb's implementation of QR Codes that is abstracted up a level from the normal product page on the winery's website. This allows a clean, readable URL to be displayed to the user, and more importantly allows for the winery to point that URL to various web pages, even external websites, over the lifetime of the QR Code.

Finally, the specific web page is displayed in a format suitable to the device that the person is using. In addition to various brands of mobile phones, tablet devices are being used to scan QR Codes, and the resulting web page must allow for these devices, as well as future devices. This can be very effective in promoting an award or a new video.

We then went a step further by allowing that webpage to be overridden based on the visitor's location or device type. So for example, if you have an upcoming winemaker dinner in Chicago, you could route all Illinois visitors to a page promoting the dinner.

The QR Code management functions are available in the mobile website service offering, which is an add-on component to WineWeb's enhanced website service.

Tablet (iPad) Apps

WineWeb's Tablet Apps component allows a winery to have one or more applications suitable for display on an iPad or Android tablet device, such as:

• A tasting room app where you can hand an iPad to a visitor and let them write tasting notes as they're tasting your wines. They could also get additional information on the wines, your winery, etc., sign up for a wine club or your mailing list, etc.
  
  
• A trade sales app that your sales person could use to display information on your wines, winery, vineyards, winemaking, and allow the trade account to place a direct-to-trade order.

More info, screenshots and a link to a sample tablet app are at our services area.

CRM Dashboard

The CRM Dashboard is an enhancement to our winery customer relationship management services. The integrated winery CRM dashboard allows wineries to analyze their customers across e-commerce, point-of-sale and wine club transactions. The dashboard also includes analysis of direct trade orders and email campaigns. A customer snapshot feature allows viewing customer preferences and sales history at a glance. The new integrated CRM dashboard will provide wineries with the capability to analyze their customers and then target their sales campaigns and strategies to create loyal, long-term customers. The winery CRM dashboard is available in September 2010

Day-of-Event Functions to Event Reservations

We've enhanced our event reservation services to better support activities on the day of an event.

1. POS Quick Event. On the day of an event, that event item in the POS will automatically change from adding an event reservation (which requires you to enter customer information) to the familiar plus button so you can quickly process payments for ticket sales at the door. The system captures any customer information from the credit card swipe to add to the event reservation record, but the primary focus is on speed of collecting payments.
   
   
2. Event Check-In. We now have an electronic method of validating tickets as people arrive for an event. While the current event reports work great for checking in attendees, we wanted to provide a more high tech option. Now, on the day of the event, a "Check-In" link appears on the event list. This function allows you to enter a ticket number (or the first and last ticket numbers in a group) and it validates the ticket(s). We even added a familiar bing or buzz sound as an audible indicator of the validation result.
   
   
3. Mobile Event Administration. While the previous option works well on a laptop at the gate, a more high tech option would be to use an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad at the gate. We've added the ability to view event reservations and to check in attendees to the mobile administration service (available with the Enhanced Website and Premier Bundle). Multiple entrances? No problem as the check-in data is synced immediately.

Want to see more? View our previous enhancements.