What Ridiculous Wine Descriptions Teach Us About Customer Experience and Retention

Let me describe a wine for you.

This wine opens with bold notes of sun-warmed blackberry, immediately followed by a confident splash of boiled potato water, the kind you accidentally sip once and spend the rest of your life questioning.

On the nose, you’ll detect wet library book, rain-soaked flannel, and a fleeting hint of freshly unplugged extension cord. There’s also something unmistakably familiar, like whatever your grandmother kept in a drawer but never explained.

Pairs beautifully with:

• meats you can’t pronounce

• cheeses that smell like a dare

• or drinking alone while nodding thoughtfully and saying, “Interesting.”

Decant for 45 minutes… or don’t. Either way, someone will insist it’s “complex.”

Why Customers Hate This (Even If They Can’t Explain Why)

Wine descriptions like this are exactly why normal people:

• feel intimidated

• stop asking questions

• grab whatever bottle has a cute animal on the label

• and never come back to that brand again

This isn’t about taste. It’s about customer experience.

When customers feel confused, talked down to, or unsure if they “get it,” they disengage. They don’t complain. They don’t argue. They just mentally check out.

And that’s where customer retention quietly dies.

Confusion Is a CX Failure, Not a Branding Win

Businesses love to overcomplicate things.

They:

• describe simple services in inflated language

• hide clarity behind cleverness

• mistake sounding sophisticated for delivering value

That doesn’t create loyalty. It creates distance. And distance is the enemy of retention.

Customers don’t stay loyal to brands that make them feel dumb. They stay loyal to brands that make them feel comfortable, confident, and welcome.

The Real Customer Experience Lesson

Great customer experience doesn’t impress people. It reassures them.

It says:

• “You’re in the right place.”

• “You don’t need a decoder ring.”

• “You don’t need to pretend.”

That feeling, relief, is sticky. That’s what drives repeat business, referrals, and long-term retention.

It’s why approachable brands outperform “elevated” ones. It’s why clarity and authenticity beats cleverness and polish.

Customer Retention Starts With Permission, Not Poetry

If your messaging sounds like that wine description, impressive but exhausting, you’re not enhancing the customer experience. You’re creating friction.

Retention doesn’t come from dazzling language. It comes from making it easy for customers to say yes again. Sometimes the most powerful thing your brand can communicate is simply:

“Relax. You’re allowed to enjoy this.”

No sniffing. No swirling. No confusion.

Just a customer experience people actually want to repeat.