10.11am

India

Our particular store, Chalk Farm, has got a massive range of customers. There’s everyone you can possibly imagine in that part of London, which makes it a really varied, fun place to work, because you’re just running into people from all walks of life.

Siobhan

Our customers vary quite wildly in Westbury, from weddings, so you might have a young couple who come in and know exactly what they want or they might know absolutely nothing at all, so you’ll be responsible for guiding them through the wines for their special day. Or literally just advising them on the wines you’ve got in and that they’ve already got an idea about. We also do a lot of wines for tastings. There are quite a lot of wine societies around in Bristol as well, so we do a lot of things for them. People for dinner parties, right down to people just for their every day drinking as well, so there’s a huge range.

Lydia

Here at Battersea we get all sorts of customers with all sorts of queries and requests. You’re dealing with people that just want a selection of six bottles to take home, to people that are ordering for a wedding and need 100 bottles of each style of wine, so it’s quite varied. We also deal with corporate customers, so businesses that are looking to place orders. Either for Christmas you get people who are ordering gifts for all their employees, or for colleagues in different companies, other people that are just planning a family event, all sorts of occasions.

Jennie

the restaurants and bars call up usually on quite set days and order the specific wines that are on their wine list. And then we also get the customers that come in and just want to create a mixed case or are possibly having a party or a wedding. They ask advice on what kinds of wines they would like, what we think they would like, what would go down well, what matches with different types of foods and also a lot about quantities, how many bottles we think they should have for a wedding or whatever.

10.45am

David

I work in quite a big store, so we have a separate driver. We also have two vans because we have quite a lot of stock there. So, normally the driver comes in and makes a cup of tea for everybody – that’s his first job – makes a cup of tea, and then we load the vans with him. He then, because he knows the area better than most people, because we always move around a bit, he normally chooses his route based on times. There are three different slots so he organises that with either one of us or the Manager or Assistant Manager and then he goes on his way. Normally he does it, on the weekends he doesn’t, so it’s normally one of us Trainee Managers that gets the job.

Alex

We get one drop a week here in Battersea. Anywhere between 7 and 9 pallets depending on how much stock we need into the store at any one time. That arrives on a Tuesday and we try and get that away as quickly as possible because our main trading day is Saturday, so we need the store looking really good, ideally for Friday, but definitely for Saturday. We need everything off the shop floor as there’s generally quite a lot of footfall.

India

We have quite a small delivery area, but because the phone order system is such a big part of the way we sell, we’re normally running a full van of deliveries most days. So that’s normally between 15 and 20 deliveries a day. In Chalk Farm we have a full time driver so he takes care of all of that and we have someone out in the van pretty much all day. It is a busy schedule, but it’s such an important part of what we do that it’s nice to get out and meet the customers as well.

12.58pm

David

The tasting counter is probably the most useful tool we have. As soon as a customer comes in we normally direct them to the tasting counter, unless they know exactly what they want, so it’s important to get it right what’s on there. You have to have a range, price wise, flavour wise, that kind of thing. So for me I use it if the customer doesn’t know what they want, the first port of call will be the tasting counter.

Suzy

There are about 10 different wines opened on the tasting counter during the week. Usually about 5 reds and 5 whites, sometimes a rose for summer. It’s really good because usually with the reds you have a combination, or different types, so you’ve got a pinot noir or a malbec open and they’re different. So if a customer comes in and asks for your opinion or asks for something which you can recommend, you can take them to the tasting counter, they can have a little tipple on the reds or whites, whatever they wish. And they can hopefully find a wine that they like. So it’s really good in terms of broadening the customers’ knowledge of their wines and the possible wines that we sell. And it’s really good for me personally, because as I’m new, I’m able to try new wines each time they’re open. So, when I started we had a Malbec on the counter and it’s the first time I’d ever heard of, or even tried a Malbec, but since that first day I’ve actually fallen in love with that grape and its absolutely beautiful, and its because of the tasting counter. And not all the shops around are you’re able to taste, but with Majestic wine, you can go in, discover new wines and hopefully, like I said, fall in love with them as well.

Arthur

The tasting counter, I find, is an invaluable sales tool. It’s great for when people want a particular wine which is on offer. We try to match it to what our customers want. For example, we have lots of people wanting claret or white burgundy around here, so we always try to have one of them onto taste. If a customer comes in and queries a particular wine that we haven’t got on to taste, we say ‘We’ve got something like it, was this the budget and price you were after, do you like this particular wine’, and having that there in a wine shop is great, because a lot of people do want to try before they buy.

Gareth

We use it as a tool to interact with our customers, to develop our own knowledge, develop the customers’ knowledge. We change the wines on the counter regularly to things we particularly want to try, or we open wines for customers. We open a real broad range of wines as well, from expensive stuff to the entry level stuff, just to give us a feel for the different grape varieties, the different regions and also just to give all the customers the opportunity to try things that they might not get to try.

Ludovic

It’s a great tool really, the tasting counter. First of all, it’s one of the things that separate us from a lot of our competitors. Customers can come in and try things before they buy. We generally tend to have a selection of between 6 and 10 wines on there. Red, white, rose, whatever we can come up with. Generally we try and make a selection that’s quite varied, so most of the time there will be wines from maybe Australia, France, Chile, all over the world, so we can compare them. Every once in a while we might have a special focus, so for a weekend or for a week, we might do only Australian wines, or only wines from the Loire. So that’s quite interesting because not only does it bring a little bit of interest for our customers, but also it’s also a fantastic teaching tool. When my trainees start there are 800 wines to get your head around and it’s absolutely invaluable to be able to go in there and taste wines day in, day out, compare things, see things from different regions. So, yes, the tasting counter is a great resource.

1.27pm

Siobhan

Everyone in Majestic tends to get along really well. We’re all very like minded, everybody’s got a common ground, so when you start there’s something there that everybody’s got to talk about that’s very familiar. It’s a long day so whether you’re merchandising together, or whether you’re helping a customer pick their wines off – it’s good if somebody comes in and they’re not sure, you might work as a pair to help them decide what they want, especially if it’s a big occasion or something like that it’s really important. We do tastings together. There are all sorts of things going on and it generally does tend to be that you work as a team for most of the day, rather than working on your own.

Gareth

It’s probably one of the most important factors of working at Majestic, is the interaction with your colleagues, because we all have to do 10 hours a day together, 5 days a week and it’s so important that you have that communication, that interaction and that you just get on well with them. Whether it comes to merchandising or loading the van for deliveries, or whether it’s dealing with customers, you have to communicate, share, delegate and just generally work together to make it a successful retail operation.

Lydia

One of the things I like most about Majestic is that it’s a very team environment in which you work. Although we have a Manager, Assistant Manager, Trainees and different levels within the store, you’re all working for a common gain, a common benefit and it’s a real team effort to achieve targets. You all muck in, you all do the same jobs. Even though I’m the Manager I’ll still help with the deliveries, getting everything organised, and doing the same jobs as the Trainees. So I think it’s really important when you start new, you’re being advised by people that have been in exactly the same position as you. It’s very much everyone starts in the same place and works their way up with internal promotion, which I think is really helpful. Even our Chief Executive Steve Lewis started out as a Trainee.

Ludovic

I work in a store that’s one of our busiest stores. I’ve got a team of eight, so on a random day there’ll probably be three or four on a team. But there’s a lot to do, lots of customers, the phone ringing, it’s a busy environment, with deliveries coming and going out. So, we do need to be very efficient and we do need to work well together. With the morning coffee we’ll have a plan for the day and everybody has a responsibility for a specific area of what needs to be achieved that day, and we’re quite a tight team, we work together to achieve all those objectives.

2.47pm

Karl

Merchandising is very, very important, because obviously you have to make the shop look as perfect as possible. Because people want to shop in a store that does look good, people don’t want to shop in a store that looks messy, so you try and organise things so you have your best offers near the front, you have separate stack displays. It’s something you organise in conjunction with the Manager, the Regional Manager as well. It’s just essentially a way of getting people to spend more money, for people to be interested in new products, and a way for us to show people new products as well.

Gareth

We obviously have to make the store look presentable at all times. This is a retail environment, the shop has to look good and we have to make the shop look accessible for ease of use for customers as well.

India

The store appearance is obviously a really important part. Customers walking into a store with boxes strewn everywhere doesn’t look great and it makes it much more difficult for them to shop as well, so the actual layout of the store is pretty important as goes sales. So, all the stock comes in in enormous pallets and that all needs to be put away in quite a specific way. Obviously depending on the promotions and what products are on offer, then we’ll change the layout of the store and make sure that the more prominent sale products are more visible, more accessible.

Jennie

All the stock that we get delivered from head office comes in on mixed pallets. And we’re quite lucky in Stockport in that we have quite a large stock room, so we break down the pallets out the back, as it is, and then take it out into the shop into their own individual countries.

7.00pm

Siobhan

It’s all about asking the right questions, so when a customer comes in, unless they’re a regular you’re not going to know instantly what they’re going to like. And just because you like something, doesn’t mean they’re going to. So it’s really important to use the tasting counter and gauge from that what their specific tastes are, because it’s all very subjective. And then from your knowledge about the product then guiding them towards the right wine for them. And everybody’s taste is so different that it does vary a lot, so knowing the range is really important.

Alex

We do wine courses here, really good fun evenings actually. We generally start about 7 o’clock once people have finished work. People turn up, we give them a glass of prosecco, have a little chat and get to know them. Then we sit down and first of all we start off with three white wines. It’s quite interesting the differences. We try and compare and contrast a few styles and some people, what they love, other people really hate. People really get a feel for what they do like and what they don’t like. Then we move onto a champagne, maybe compare that to the prosecco they had at the start and then we’ll move onto three reds. Again generally three different styles and it’s really marked the differences in peoples tastes. We also encourage them to try and leave a few of those samples in the bottom of the glass and then we can move onto a bit of food and wine matching. Maybe get a bit of tomato with Sancerre, compare and contrast the acidity, try and match that high acidity in the wine with the high acidity of the tomato. Also maybe the protein in cheese with a good Bordeaux, which softens out the wine. It’s really interesting. People don’t really think about that when making their food.

Lydia

The first thing I always ask is what wines do you like, what wines have you tried before and enjoyed. So you’ve immediately got something that you can compare. And then if you say, ’if you like that, here’s something similar, but a little bit different’. And we have the tasting counter and that’s a great way of introducing them to something and saying you might like this if you’ve liked that before, and then if they don’t like that then you know to go for something completely different.