Shutdowns and restrictions have pushed breweries into increasingly unfamiliar territory as they scramble to develop sales aptitudes not required in the past. Earlier in 2020, almost overnight, the pandemic forced breweries to quickly conjure up e-commerce operations and customer-facing digital sales and marketing operations while simultaneously reinventing their in-person brewery experience.
One of the bigger challenges inherent in this shift is maintaining standards around customer experience—but not without tackling that question that every brewery has to answer: Who are our customers?
Recent months have shown us that the answer to that question is multi-faceted, and that successful breweries don’t homogenize different customer types into a single idea of “the customer.” Today’s craft drinkers run the gamut in terms of age, comfort level, and safety expectations.