Sending a bloke flowers
April 10, 2009 7:29 pm Email CommunicationsThis week I saw evidence that either:
a) I’d turned gay;
or …
b) Companies shouldn’t rely too heavily on the basic data supplied to them but should look at the human side of things.
Thankfully (for my fiancee) it turned out to be the latter …
I’d planned a surprise engagement couple of days away (including hotel) and needed to book flowers to be delivered to our hotel room for our arrival. Found a company called Arenaflowers.com and the process went like this:
- Made the bespoke request online (I wanted something specific).
- Got the price and paid. Made it clear that the hotel booking was in my name but supplied details to go on a card with the flowers (for my soon-to-be fiancee). The idea was that the flowers got delivered, the hotel knew they were for my room and they’d be there with the card on arrival.
- On the day I got a text saying they’d been delivered – a nice touch.
- Sure enough, the flowers were in the room on arrival but alas, the card greeting wasn’t with it. Still, not a big deal.
- One happy fiancee.
Got back home and found the email from Arena Flowers which said:
Dear Andy,
Your order was delivered to Andy Harris at Ettington Park Hotel at 8 April 09 @ 9.01. We hope that Andy Harris enjoyed the flowers (and has said thank you!).
!!!!
So it was an email TO me, hoping that I had enjoyed the flowers (or some other man). You can see how this happened because all the details entered into their system would have been related to me and because the hotel was booked in my name, that’s the name that was assumed to be the recipient of the flowers. Various fields of data entered to their database but without considering the real story that was right under their nose because I’d also included in my email to them who the flowers were actually for, including the details that were supposed to go on a card with the flowers.
If they’d thought a little bit more about the depth of the order instead of making assumptions that everyone orders flowers that are directly for the recipient by name as per the order details, then I wouldn’t have a daft looking email in my inbox and wouldn’t have this tale to tell.
However, apart from that mistake and the absence of the message card I’d still probably use them again because the flowers were lovely and were on time, which, at the end of the day, was all that mattered!
April 12th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Hi there
I found this post through our Google alerts and I hope you don’t mind me popping up to explain what happened.
As you guessed, our system automatically inserts the name entered in the recipient field into our automated emails and texts. When customers send to self this system doesn’t work perfectly but as you say we could have entered the details of your fiancee instead of your own in the recipient field. The only danger with that approach might have been that in the event of any problems it would have been your fiancee who was contacted rather than yourself, which might have ruined the surprise.
Regarding the card, I’ve checked the system and your message was indeed entered correctly with your order. So the card either was not sent out with the flowers or, feasibly, it was got separated from the flowers after arriving at the hotel. Either way, we do apologise for that and hope that the prompt delivery, lovely flowers and the text message made the experience enjoyable.
Thanks for the feedback. Always helpful to read so we can improve our service to customers.
And thanks again for the order and good luck with the wedding!
Will Wynne
April 12th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
For readers of this blog, what you’re witnessing here is a brilliant example of a company keeping an eye out for any type of feedback, and acting accordingly.
For those that aren’t aware, using Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) to input your company name (including variations such as the website url) and then get alerted when there is company visibility online, is a really useful thing to do.
In this case, Will from Arena Flowers picked up on this blog posting very quickly, provided an explanation, AND highlighted the fact that the points were a useful customer experience learning point.
There are so many companies out there blindly unaware of what people are blogging about them. Let’s suppose that a brand such as Interflora weren’t keeping track in a similar way, and people had less than satisfactory experiences and started blogging about it – they’d start losing business but wouldn’t have a clue why.
What Arena Flowers have shown here is that the real winners are those companies that a) keep an eye on who is saying what about them, and b) respond appropriately and are thankful for the opportunity to identify where things could be improved.
And in the current economic environment, any edge that any company can get, has got to be a good thing.
Thank you Will for your prompt action and the opportunity to demonstrate to people why Google Alerts can be so useful.