Great Customer Service from Elmo Pio Wines

Elmo Pio Wines

I love my wine. Anyone who knows me knows that. I especially love a good affordable wine; something to gulp, I mean sip, during the evenings after a long hard day at work. (every day). One evening, I was enjoying a bottle of Elmo Pio Chianti. You know the bottle, the kitschy one with the straw basket on the lower half? I love it! It is a great wine which always reminds me of that classic Billy Joel song, "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant". 

Now I had an issue with a bottle of wine I was drinking and subsequently contacted the distributor about it. It wasn't a major concern and I'm not going to go into detail about it because the matter was handled quickly, thoroughly, and professionally. AND I wanted to tell you about the wonderful customer service I received from Pio Imports / Elmo Pio Wines.

I initially left a message on their website asking for a callback to address my concerns. A couple of days went by and then finally, rather annoyed, I called the distributor directly in North Wales, PA. I left one of my typically long rambling messages requesting and expecting a callback.

I finally got a callback from a man named Dave Dahme who turned out to be the general manager of the import company in the US. He apologetically explained that he had been in Europe in Italy at the vineyards (wish that was my job!) and then was doing a wine tasting back in the states in Hershey, PA. Gee did I feel like a demanding, annoying rube. I think we each apologized to the other several times.

Photo taken by a very appreciative customer!

After I explained my issue with my bottle of Chianti, Mr. Dahme set about to make things "right." He kept in touch via phone and email throughout the next couple weeks. He also kept me in the loop with his correspondence to his business partners in Italy which I thought was pretty cool, too.

Now all I had wanted was a new bottle of Chianti but Mr. Dahme went above and beyond the call of duty. We set up a meeting outside of Allentown for me to drop off my old bottle of Chianti. He had driven an hour north to meet me and presented me with two higher end bottles of Chianti and a bottle of Prosecco expressing his regrets on my experience.

Needless to say, I was very impressed by how hard he worked to rectify my issue. In one of my previous careers, I worked for the Ritz-Carlton Philly for 8 years and have come to recognize and expect great customer service. More often than not, you don't receive it and leave an establishment disappointed.

Mr. Dahme's response showed me that there are still people and companies out there which run their business with a foundation of incredible customer service. It is becoming a rarity these days.  For that, I am thankful and  he has now gained a Elmo Pio customer for life!