One of the most important building blocks of showing customers that you appreciate their business is having a stable, professional and knowledgeable staff ready to assist any customer’s needs. Of the more than 40 employees who work at Neptune Cigars, many have been with the business for multiple years. There’s Allison Petitt, a senior customer service manager at Neptune Cigars, who has been with the company for 13 years. Another customer service manager, Adam Stewart, has been at Neptune Cigars for almost a decade. Luz’s sister, Mari Mena, has also been at Neptune Cigars for 11 years, and she is the director of retail, taking care of all the brick-and-mortar stores and their employees.
“Neptune is a huge collaboration, and I don’t know where we would be without these people,” Luz comments. “There are a lot of people who put in a lot of effort and come happily to work each day, and we really appreciate them for it. We have a culture of collaboration and teamwork.”
Neptune Cigars invests heavily in giving all of its employees the tools they need to provide top-notch experiences to all of its customers. The Normands are big believers in education, and they provide their employees opportunities to expand their cigar knowledge by visiting the tobacco fields and cigar factories where the products they sell are grown and manufactured so that they can confidently describe the artisanship of handmade premium cigarmaking to their customers. Likewise, there are a host of custom-made tools the company has developed in order to mine data from its point-of-sale system that can provide information about any customer’s previous purchases to help store employees make recommendations to their customers.
“Our customers get treated well—that’s our No. 1 priority.—and we give our staff the tools they need to do a great job at it,” Luz says. “Our website is interactive, and it allows people to upload pictures, rate and review cigars, or make wish lists. When our staff talks to a customer, they can see the customer profile and have all the information they need to be able to give a recommendation. That is one way that we have enhanced the experience, and it works on all the channels of our business.”
Another key aspect of Neptune Cigars’ overall success has been its ability to replicate the deep information about any cigar brand that’s available on its website or on its stores’ shelves. The Normands spent a lot of time thinking about how to best use the space inside their stores to give their customers the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions whenever a staff member might be unavailable to help them. The solution was to build display shelves that contain all of the pertinent information regarding a brand.
Neptune Cigars’ innovative spirit will take a big leap forward in 2020 as it unveils an artificial intelligence program developed by Christophe that will give customers personalized cigar recommendations. In effect, each customer will have a personal cigar sommelier ready to help him or her find the perfect cigar at his or her fingertips.
“Christophe says that we’re an IT company that sells cigars,” Luz concludes. “We want to continue to innovate so that someday we might be able to offer every available cigar to everyone on the planet. We will continue to surprise our customers and the industry—just stay tuned.”
This story first appeared in the March/April 2020 issue of Tobacco Business magazine. Members of the tobacco industry are eligible for a complimentary subscription to our magazine. Click here for details.
– Story by Stephen A. Ross, editor-in-chief of Tobacco Business Magazine.
