Using Positive Selling Skills to Take Wine Orders

Enjoying wine with a meal, for many customers, enhances their dining out experience and creates a positive impression. Whether your business is high end or informal casual style, maximising revenue is an important factor. Therefore, selling is an inherent part of any front of house role.

However, not everyone is a born salesperson, and some people struggle to promote wine to customers effectively and many avoid trying! We aim to make selling easier and effective for food service team members.

Understanding information on a wine list is a good starting point and as there are many different list formats, how to offer the wine list professionally, even if it is just a single page. We look at selling opportunities during the customer experience in a restaurant then focus on using‘soft’ selling skills. 3 key steps are explored which are easy for any team member to remember and use. Any sale will fall down if the wine order is not taken correctly so the opportunity is taken in this module to look at this process, from where to stand, what is used, to tips for writing the order itself. Selling is all about giving a positive impression, so the module concludes with reminders on giving great customer service when taking a wine order.

This Using Positive Selling Skills to Take Wine Orders module is fully interactive using questions, games and activities designed to develop knowledge and understanding. Full colour images illustrate examples and key points.

Post Module Action

Completing training doesn’t always mean that action and change happens! Use our unique action plans that learners can download from within the module and complete.

Using a series of questions, learners are asked to apply the information in the module to their workplace from how they offer wine lusts, what selling opportunities they have including any special promotions, how they might improve their customer service to setting up a competition for who sells the most wine!

Managers can use the action plans to discuss with individuals and organise additional support and training to ensure individuals feel confident to promote wine sales effectively.

In addition, there are lots of links to websites and documents that can be used to research further learning.

Target Audience

The Professional Wine and Champagne Service is designed for all operational F&B staff in hotels, restaurants and bars to develop their knowledge of Wine and Champagne service. The Professional Wine and Champagne Service modules can be used as a complete programme or individually for specific training needs or refreshers. Individuals may like to develop their own knowledge and confidence or use the module certificates at interviews. The Professional Wine and Champagne Service programme will contribute to the guided learning hours for those staff completing a hospitality apprenticeship.