Did you suspend your Mercury or Dove?

[CHR]

I think it means they do good math, and understand capacity and allowed profitable percentage of discounted business.

I agree that more florists need to sell their own brand like the Ritz does, and cut off discounts when they believe they'll compromise quality for the customers they've already booked.

Let's toast florists acting like the Ritz... instead of implying they're 'not real' if they manage their capacity effectively.

 

[bloomz]

I'll drink to that

Diet Coke of course

 

[Knife's Wife]

100% in agreement with this one Bloomz, great post

Joan

I think it means they do good math, and understand capacity and allowed profitable percentage of discounted business.

Way above most florists heads.

Don't you agreee?


I'll go a bit out on a limb here and make one of my usual controversial statements:

Mother's Day is a huge wire holiday, the biggest we have in our industry - it's the way it is.

Are you a part of helping customers, flower consumers (and the industry) by making sure Mothers get their flowers, or not?

Incoming wires and outgoing wires are serving flower consumers, and our industry - no matter where they order them.

Are you part of the solution or part of the problem?

Suspending to stop FU flowers is part of the problem.





by the way - our incoming wire sales were up 24% - the only order refused was the JF order 40 miles away.

 

[TOTO]

If Not Now, When? If Not Us, Who?

Ya know people, this is what it's all about !

Maybe that's why I'm here, in the shop, still working, so committed to everyone, but me !

TOTO, ...........my friend,......... who one day I will meet...............Thank you !
You...........................made my night !

Every now and then I make a quote, which is so much a part of life, that so few realize, I think, in these times.
"Sempre Fi",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

It means a lot to those of us that lived the life, and the flame never goes away, and it never will !

TOTO............YOU ROCK !

IF NOT NOW, WHEN? IF NOT US, WHO?

Hey KEVIN my MAN!

This is by far, my favorite quote, especially since it's from our late great President, Ronald Reagan, as he made his Second Inaugural Address on MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 1985.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/inaug/reagan2.htm

"A dynamic economy, with more citizens working and paying taxes, will be our strongest tool to bring down budget deficits. But an almost unbroken 50 years of deficit spending has finally brought us to a time of reckoning. We have come to a turning point, a moment for hard decisions. I have asked the Cabinet and my staff a question, and now I put the same question to all of you: "If not us, who? And if not now, when? It must be done by all of us going forward with a program aimed at reaching a balanced budget. We can then begin reducing the national debt."

If one was to substitute the word CITIZENS (florists) for FLORAL ORDER GATHERERS, and equate that to our strongest tool (bring down A REAL FLORISTS' budget deficit) (by eliminating DA SKIMMERS), us WEE BEES would be back in charge of our own time of reckoning!

As he ended: "It must be done by all of us going forward with a program aimed at reaching a balanced budget. We can then begin reducing the national debt."

And in TOTO SPEAK: It must be done by all of us going forward with a program aimed at eliminating all of DA SKIMMERS (aka: MIDDLEMEN) to reach a balanced budget. We can then begin reducing OUR FLORAL INDUSTRY'S REAL FLORIST NATIONAL DEFICIT!

 

[avenuegardensflorist]

But if you give a red dot, sign it.

....Ryan. Is this possible on flowerchat?

Red dots administered anonymously? If so I would think transparency would be more fair. Can that be done?

 

[Mikey the Flower Guy]

Twila...kick that bro' of yours in the pants for me...he's just lookin to raise a ruckus!!
Our Merc was ON, .com tried and failed to "inspire" us, we accepted and filled every single F2F order, even if under our min's , and we filled a couple of sheets of REAL FLORIST incomings.
FTD had no coverage in several instances, about 15 of our outbound customers asked us to refer them to shops that we trusted, and about 10 others, we sent through another avenue.
We rejected 8 OG orders Merc'd, 3 by phone, and then they just suddenly stopped......we were very professional, they got their rejects within a few minutes.
Guess I'm a professional rejecter now!!
Today ,Sunday, was a huge day for us, and NO mothers were without their gifts, either inbound, OR outbound.

 

[CHR]

One last thing. BE THANKFUL THEY SHUT DOWN THEIR MACHINES when they reached discounted order capacity.

I got two calls today from customers whose flowers weren't delivered and netiher store returned my calls or messages.

I'd rather keep trying other stores in the area or call the customer back, tell them we could not place their order, and get our message out in advance or the problem. We'll even pull out the CC and give 100% to a non-WS member, if needed, but PLEASE do say no and/or shut off your machine if you don't have the ability to get my order delivered.

 

[shannonlovesflowers]

Question to those who shut down mercury or dove.... Do you also shut your front door and take the phones off the hook? I personally see no difference?? If you can't handle anymore, than you can't handle any more! Not trying to be confrontational....

Joan

We did not shut the doors. We did not take the phone off the hook.

Had we been getting wire in orders for AT LEAST OUR MINIMUM and designer's choice we would have left it on.

We also had a lot of arrangements pre-made and ready to go, none of which were under $45.00. Our average was about $70.00.
We also carry a lot of bath and body products, perfume, jewelry, plants, permanate botanicals, etc. It would have been silly to lock the doors seeing as we had all of those products to sell.
Our last 2 drivers didn't get back until 7:30pm and 8pm or so. My husband (one of our drivers) took a delivery that literally took him almost 2 hours to do, Oh yes there was a huge delivery fee, and the Mother who got her flowers was SO happy. We do everything we can to help all the mamas out at Mother's day. We even offer to call the mamas who their kids can't afford to pay the hefty delivery fee and ask them to schedule a time for them to come pick up their gift. We are in a mountain community and it's common practice here. We would only do this if we had permission from the sender.

Different shops have different ways of handling things.

 

[Twila]

Twila...kick that bro' of yours in the pants for me...he's just lookin to raise a ruckus!!
Our Merc was ON, .com tried and failed to "inspire" us, we accepted and filled every single F2F order, even if under our min's , and we filled a couple of sheets of REAL FLORIST incomings.
FTD had no coverage in several instances, about 15 of our outbound customers asked us to refer them to shops that we trusted, and about 10 others, we sent through another avenue.
We rejected 8 OG orders Merc'd, 3 by phone, and then they just suddenly stopped......we were very professional, they got their rejects within a few minutes.
Guess I'm a professional rejecter now!!
Today ,Sunday, was a huge day for us, and NO mothers were without their gifts, either inbound, OR outbound.

That's why Mikey's da Man!!!

So just to change things up a bit and ask a different question...are any of you going to be closed on Monday? Yes, we all need a break and are very tired. In my opinion, it's like sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich. We have a responsibility to make sure that everyone was pleased with their orders. The day after a big holiday is always "Mop-up day". That is the day when you find out that "so and so florist" didn't deliver to Mom or the flowers didn't look like the picture. We don't usually have any problems from what comes out of our store, but get plenty of complaints from others. It's really amazing how many irresponsible REAL FLORISTS don't seem to care what happens even if they don't finish all their deliveries for Mother's Day. Wait a minute...if they are indeed "Real Florists", it would only seem right that they would take special care to be sure each consumer was pleased with their order, but apparently not all of them!

Sorry if I struck a cord with anyone here, but these are my opinions. I believe that we have a responsibility to our customers. My day off comes on Thursday--a well deserved day off I might add. I'm getting a massage!

 

[Twila]

And another thing....

Kevin....

Get yourself to the Doctor and take care of yourself
OK!!!!

 

[NavyBrat]

Twila,

You know my answer...OPEN and in full gear! We already have 20 orders to fill, plus another huge prom on our tails for Friday. I'll be taking the day off Wednesday, and still...I will not take my phone off the hook if staff needs me! HA! I don't expect problems...we have a list of preferred shops for our outgoing wires and make sure those shop fill them. If they happen to have their machine turned off...I call them. One or two problems out of the volume we encountered for the week=no problems in my book!

 

[bloomz]

We did not shut the doors. We did not take the phone off the hook.

Had we been getting wire in orders for AT LEAST OUR MINIMUM and designer's choice we would have left it on.

So what about those that DID meet your minumums?

I have every reason to believe you are a highly professional shop - what if I had a $100 order to go to you?

FU flowers caused that to happen?

I find that a bit like cutting off ones nose to spite another ones face.

But WTFDIK?

Cathy's right about suspending is better than going over capacity and taking more than you can handle.

But that's simply a part of being professional - knowing your capacity and/or being dynamic and staffing up as necessary.

We could have handled easily another 100 orders or so and welcomed incoming.

 

[bloomz]

It's really amazing how many irresponsible REAL FLORISTS don't seem to care what happens even if they don't finish all their deliveries for Mother's Day. Wait a minute...if they are indeed "Real Florists", it would only seem right that they would take special care to be sure each consumer was pleased with their order, but apparently not all of them!

Ouch!

We have 5 unanswered non delivery inquiries/complaints right now sitting in our checkout box. 3 of those - I sent cancels and re-sent the orders.

I always call the recipient and make sure they didn't get them.

I'd sure love mandatory delivery confirmations - with a time limit on them. Here's an idea - confirm witin 24 hours or you don't get paid for them.

Have I said that before?

 

[TOTO]

We may have SUSPENDED, but that's not to say that...

Hey JB!

While we may have SUSPENDED the MERC or the DOVE on a major floral holiday, and after their customer's wants and needs were long since, out of our barn, and in our efforts to ELIMINATE DA SKIMMERS, we also kept our TELEPHONES ON, rather than, in the MAKE BUSY STATE!

Our PRIME OBJECTIVE was to answer our telephones for our own customers with their 100% sales, along with our $ervice charges.

Our secondary objective was to answer our telephones for other REAL FLORISTS who happen to have REAL ORDERS with REAL SRPs along with REAL DOO-ABLE filler florist abilities, versus a PIE IN DA SKY DOA order!

The issue is not over any REAL FLORIST'S ABILITY to fill excess Holiday Orders, but rather, their DESIRE to FILL QUALIFIED HOLIDAY ORDERS, which produce a reasonable return on their labors, and based on their own personal investment of THEIR BLOOD, SWEAT, and TEARS!

In other words, and iffen it ain't maken ya any money, why in Heaven's Name, would anyone wanna doo, any extra HOLIDAY doo?

 

[master J]

I just want to go on record that, I voted for yes, we turned our dove off, and will continue to do so at every major holiday....we are too busy filling 100% orders and we are not overstaffed with employees, this works very well for us.....it is our choice and it works FOR US! ( too many og's and low balled orders to be bothered with, even if it only takes a minute to refuse it, it keeps coming back, that adds up to more wasted time that I don't have to be sittin at a dove machine checking crappy incoming orders)

If this puts me in the non-real florist category then so be it!

Opinions vary........

 

[master J]

also thank you TOTO for making sense of all of this !!:thumbsup

 

[lori042499]

You are only allowed to sub if the order states "subs are ok" Regardless if it's a holiday or not.

Does that answer your question?

you know what I need to eloborate..... If the order says "subs are ok" then subbs are ok regardless if it's a holiday. if it says no subs, then duh, no subs allowed. If it doesn't say one way or another, I get really nervous, and we usually call or send an ask to see what is appropriate. maybe thats a better explanation

Shannon, The rule in WS world is the day before the holiday ie sat before mother's day. You are supposed to send out your first choice specific and second choice open(meaning anything you have in that price ramge). I however have not seen a slimcast about this in a few years and headqurters of anytype does not follow this rule...It is much easier to reject than argue about what can and cannot be sent or send anything and get a complaint about it...

 

[BOSS]

Yep...shut it down Friday when we closed... too many orders for BR549 or the like...

We did give out close to 200 local florist numbers though..so they could call you direct!

 

[lori042499]

I don't believe it's the same for Dove, is it?

Yes, same for the dove...

 

[shannonlovesflowers]

Lori,
well, the truly easy thing for us was just to shut it off. Problem solved. No, Hq doesn't follow these rules. I'm not arguing, I was answering a question put to me by Joe.

Bloomz,
thanks for noticing we are quality. like I stated before, As we are the only TF shop in town and we shut off our dove, and did keep our phones on, other florists could have called and we could see what we could have done for them then. We didn't stop taking deliveries until about 3pm. I think sometimes you need to know your limits.
If customers wanted to come into the store and pick something up, no problem, we had lots of stuff made for them to choose from. If they wanted something custom, then we would have to see what we could do at that moment. But I can't and won't push aside orders for people who had enough sense to order ahead of time for someone who doesn't think of their mom until the very last minute.
We did what we could do well. And I'm certain all of you did as well.