Thanks so much for your thoughtful note and reply to my post about your company, Southern Tier Brewing Company. First off I want to say that I think the “voting experiment” was a great idea and it really got me excited. As a homebrewer, I’m interested in the nuanced flavors and comparing the different variations on a recipe.

As I was writing the original post, I figured that one of the reasons there is only a single batch included in each variety pack is because of logistical reasons. I totally understand this limitation, but it still has an impact on the overall user experience.

Again, I think it’s awesome that you guys had an idea and “hastily” put it out in the world. You shouldn’t take any of my critique in the vein of saying you shouldn’t have done the experiment. I wish more companies were willing to pursue and follow through on public experiments.

Regarding the label design, I figured that you are in the process of rolling out new label designs across the entire brand, but it struck me as odd when I looked at them all lined up together. If the Pale and the Wheat are the new designs, I really like the direction you are taking them.

I think you are on the right track engaging with customers and engaging in a dialog with me is just one more example of that. I read an article (that I can’t site right now) that said that companies that can effectively resolve conflicts/problems with customers have a higher loyalty rate than those that never experienced a conflict in the first place. This means that risk and experimentation can be rewarded by higher customer loyalty if you are adaptive and responsive to you customers when the experiment doesn’t go as planned. So, good job there!

Keep on experimenting and keep in touch.

P.S. So that’s a “no” to the samples of each of the batches of your Pale so I can vote before the contest ends.

Thank you for the critique of the Voting experiment and of my label designs. I’m very sorry for the bad experience, obviously the last thing on our minds was to engage our customers in a less-than-satisfying way.

First, I apologize for the inconsistencies in the text (check box vs. radio button), it was an oversight on my part and I frankly did not notice until you pointed it out.

I also appreciate your feelings about having only one batch of Pale included in each box. We were logistically unable to warehouse the beers to include more than one variety at a time. I hope you can understand.

We should also have included a comment field on the online voting page. Another oversight of the hastily conceived project.

The voting survey will expire in the next few weeks.

I peruse daily the twitter feeds via our mobile website, stbc.mobi and have set up a twitter account. We listen to our customers, love the feedback and make adjustments when necessary.

Regarding the two styles of packaging: We’re in the midst of a packaging design overhaul, and plan to release 10 newly re-designed 12 oz packages this year. I look forward to your critique.

Finally, I truly hope you don’t think less about our brand because of the issues you found with our voting experiment. We really intended it to be fun and hoped to engage our customers. Please know that I am making corrections and will continue to keep my ear to the ground.

Nathan Arnone
Designer for Southern Tier Brewing Company