Totally on a whim today I ended up in the city of Rochester at a place called F. Olivers which is a store that sells artisan olive oils and balsamic vinegar. It was a great place, small and quaint and the two ladies working were very friendly and enthusiastic about what they were selling. We ended up leaving with a bottle of lemon olive oil.
When I got home I hopped onto my iPad to visit folivers.com so I could leave a note or email telling them how much I enjoyed my visit and to see what else they had to offer. I was astounded to find they have a nice website, but absolutely no way to contact them by email and no Facebook or Twitter presence at all! Their website was professionally designed and the lady who runs the company has a business degree, so I expected much more. The is a blog on the site, but it doesn’t appear to be very current.
I would love to have hit their Facebook page and left a message and to become part of the community they could undoubtedly be fostering, but there’s absolutely nothing there. The company that designed the site mentions branding and they did a nice job with the look and feel of the website, but having no email contact( at the very least) seems an unforgivable oversight in this day and age. Not having a presence on Facebook and/or Twitter seems equally unforgivable. I simply don’t get it.
I came home really excited, but I quickly became deflated. I imaging I’ll visit again and will likely buy more from this store, but I’m nowhere near as excited as I was when I left there. I think they missed a huge opportunity to enchant me and to make my experience last beyond. My physical visit. They certainly dampened my enthusiasm for their brand.
The saddest part is how simple this could be. Setting up an email account and putting up a Facebook page is a pretty simple thing in 2011. Maybe they are planning to get some social media going in the future, who knows. Amazingly they don’t have any way to ask (digitally). These small artisan olive oil places are popping up all over the place. I wonder if someone could engage their customers with social media and run these other folks into the ground?
