Alastair\'s Blog

Archive for May, 2009

Client profile: Barclays Capital

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

We thought it might be interesting to explain what some of our clients use their champagne for, and were delighted that the fabulous team over at Barclays Capital volunteered to be our first guinea-pigs;  thank you!

For those who don’t know, Barclays Capital are the hugely successful division of Barclays plc.  They are the lead sponsors of the UK’s Premier League football division, having taken over from Barclaycard, and we are very pleased to have been importing champagne and wines for them for a number of years.

So, an interesting question:  what is the link between Manchester United topping the Barclays Premier League for the third year on the trot and Park Lane?

Simple answer for anyone in the loop!  Park Lane is very proud of its long association with Barclays Capital as sponsors of the Premier League.  It is very very exciting when we see bottles that have passed through our hands being used with such exuberance and to full potential – even if not much of the bubbly inside is getting drunk….  We think the photographs below, courtesy of Barclays Capital and Action Images, certainly tell most of the story!

We think this also underlines the status of champagne as the perfect drink for celebration and success.  Long may there be more of that to come.

Enjoy the long weekend and fingers crossed for fair weather (dare we hope for good weather - and no more revelations about our MPs expenses?!).

Best wishes

Alastair

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Customer comments: early days!

Friday, May 15th, 2009

It’s still early days, of course, but we are thrilled to have handled quite a few customer orders already while at the same time working through a priority list of improvements to make the site more user-friendly and intuitive.  Do keep those comments coming.

Below are a couple of copied feedback messages that recipients have sent back to us and are happy for us to share - so it looks like we are keeping up our normal service standards and getting the other bits right as well… phew!

Alastair

22 April 2009: Petra Johansson, for Techcrunch Geek ‘n Rolla event

Thank you! The champagne label was great.  The event seems to have gone down well and the champers was very popular. Mike ended giving out a couple for people’s dancing efforts at the after party…

7 May 2009: Christopher Linney, first live on-line customer

Just a note to say the bottle arrived safely - very efficient delivery service and exactly as I had wanted and specified at the order stage.  Well done Gentlemen and I am sure your new service will go from strength to strength.  Also, much better value than the parking ticket I received earlier!  ATB. Chris

12 May 2009: Sarah Holman, private purchaser

Hi All! Just to let you know my champagne arrived safely in Ireland
yesterday! I would like to thank you for all your help, its a rare treat these days to receive such a high level of customer service! Thanks again.  Sarah

13 May 2009: Malcolm Thompson - Ipswich Town Football Club

Morning
I have received the bottle thank you - it looks superb!
Thank you sincerely for all your help and next time we arrange an event I will buy off you again. The next one we are hoping to do is for Kevin Beattie!

Thanks again and Best wishes  Malcolm

15 May 2009: Suzanna Hease - Think DBW design agency (24 bottles client branded champagne)

Park Lane Champagne offer a unique service whereby you can design your own artwork, or use their templates on-line to produce bespoke labels for Champagne bottles.

We ordered champagne at relatively short notice for a client function, providing our own artwork.  Their service is extremely quick and professional (even photographing a prepared bottle and emailing the pdf over before shipping for client proofing) and the final product looked fantastic. Very pleased & will be sure to use them again!  Suzi

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Bank Holiday joy

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

The first May bank holiday zoomed by - glorious weather and at our end a fun day on Sunday celebrating a centenary of birthdays (30, 30 and 40).  Much fun had by all and what a change the weather makes - I wonder if there is a measure somewhere of perception that economic gloom recedes the more the sun shines and the weather warms up? Maybe and if you know where, please post and let us all know!

Amazingly for us, the internet world ticked away while we were partying;  as a novice techie, it is simply bewildering to find that people from all over the UK (mainly) found time to visit www.parklanechampagne.co.uk AND to order bottles of personalised champagne for us to prepare for delivery to family, friends, nearest and dearest…

Even more bizarre - and a little scarey - is the Tuesday morning feedback from Google, where the weekend’s activity is assessed (we are being hand-held by Google through the first stages of Adwords marketing).  How many people visited, where they came from (down to the nearest town), how long they stayed on the site, which pages they visited, which browsers they used… and the list goes on!   I had no idea such detail was recorded from regular users and probably unknown to most of us.   Apparently PLC is still in the beginner category so goodness knows what the advanced will look like!

And the thing I have learnt above all as we embark on this adventure is the constancy of it;  by that I mean unlike conventional hard copy promotion, the internet is not simply a project that is signed off and forgotten about.  In fact, it is nearly a full time job just to keep funneling feedback to webdesigners, programmers, new partners, etc., and that is before the tweetdeck chirps up.  Still, all very exciting and thank you to everyone for your custom, your feedback and your support - and YES we are clarifying that delivery is next working day service via UPS, inclusive of protective packaging and insurance!

Tweet tweet!

Alastair (@nonvintage)

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And we’re off!

Friday, May 1st, 2009

Difficult to quantify what our expectation was when the new site launched.  Certainly a huge flurry of purchases was not on the list so we were thrilled and amazed to find five individuals chose to purchase champagne in the first 24 hours.  Simply fantastic and so VERY VERY exciting!

What is even more exciting, is that all the purchases were for exactly the purposes we had envisaged…  birthday celebrations, anniversaries, engagements and business promotion.  A massive thank you to one and all and let’s hope we can build on this.

Big big thank you to the “tasters and testers” team who put the site through its paces and gave massively important feedback - you all know who you are.  You forgot to leave me any feedback on the champagne itself (was 6 bottles enough of a sample?!)…  The things you found that were broken and the other elements that could be improved are all noted  - and those changes are already in build.

If I can just reiterate my request for all feedback from every corner - unless you tell us what you think, we just won’t know it and be able to improve it!

Enjoy the long weekend and let’s hope the sun continues to shine - a perfect excuse to break out the bubbly!

Best wishes

Alastair

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