Has DovePlus improved from a couple of years ago? We participated in the beta test and were not pleased. Switched back to dial up Dove, which in my opinion was a better system at that time. Now that Teleflora is going to start penalizing shops that do not switch to DovePlus, I guess our shop will take another look.
Dove Plus
- Thread starter Ken
- Start date
BOSS
FlowerChat Administrator
Hmmm.... forced migration to broadband? I'll bet there are some shops in small towns that may not even have broadband available...
ChristiBrown
Well-Known Member
I don't know what it was like before, but I use it and like it right now. It is a little slow waiting for each page to reload, but the user interface is pretty easy. Just make sure your screen resolution is at the right setting or certain buttons will be invisible. And you must use Internet Explorer for it, it won't work at all with Chrome or Firefox.
holland1
Member
- Jul 21, 2009
- 22
- 34
- 13
- State / Prov
- NL
Ken,
We switched about 8 months ago and I would say that overall Dove Plus is a vast improvement over the dial up Dove. As Christi Brown notes, the user interface is easy to navigate. Load times can be slow on an old computer, but if you have any reasonably up-to-date computer, that should not be an issue. For us the biggest plus - and it's been a huge benefit - is that we can access our Dove account remotely. We are no longer limited to the one computer that's linked to the dial up modem. In our case, we've loaded Dove Plus on every workstation where orders are taken. I also have it loaded on my home computer so I can monitor and respond to messages after normal business hours and I can look up old orders and messages to sort out any issues that arise when reviewing our accounts. Before we had Dove Plus, I could only do that on the dedicated Dove terminal. These may not be relevant factors for a small shop, but for ours with three order entry stations, the improvement has been significant.
Prior to reading Boss's comment, I hadn't given much thought to the issue of limited availability of broadband Internet. How big an issue is that today for anyone in the lower 48 states? It's definitely an issue for isolated communities in northern Canada and probably also for many rural communities in southern Canada. But how many florists in these communities would bother having Dove in the first place. If the communities are that isolated, is there enough business available to warrant belonging to any wire service and paying substantial monthly technology fees?
And yes, I know many will jump in at this point and say there is no longer ANY reason to be a member of any wire service. I'm not disputing or endorsing that point - just noting that the rationale for being in a wire service is MUCH weaker when we are dealing with small order volumes, especially on the SEND side. The fixed monthly fees alone eat up all of the marginal net profit and more - to say nothing about the toll that the 20% commissions, 7% clearinghouse fees, and $1.75 per incoming order transmission fees take on operating profits.
We switched about 8 months ago and I would say that overall Dove Plus is a vast improvement over the dial up Dove. As Christi Brown notes, the user interface is easy to navigate. Load times can be slow on an old computer, but if you have any reasonably up-to-date computer, that should not be an issue. For us the biggest plus - and it's been a huge benefit - is that we can access our Dove account remotely. We are no longer limited to the one computer that's linked to the dial up modem. In our case, we've loaded Dove Plus on every workstation where orders are taken. I also have it loaded on my home computer so I can monitor and respond to messages after normal business hours and I can look up old orders and messages to sort out any issues that arise when reviewing our accounts. Before we had Dove Plus, I could only do that on the dedicated Dove terminal. These may not be relevant factors for a small shop, but for ours with three order entry stations, the improvement has been significant.
Prior to reading Boss's comment, I hadn't given much thought to the issue of limited availability of broadband Internet. How big an issue is that today for anyone in the lower 48 states? It's definitely an issue for isolated communities in northern Canada and probably also for many rural communities in southern Canada. But how many florists in these communities would bother having Dove in the first place. If the communities are that isolated, is there enough business available to warrant belonging to any wire service and paying substantial monthly technology fees?
And yes, I know many will jump in at this point and say there is no longer ANY reason to be a member of any wire service. I'm not disputing or endorsing that point - just noting that the rationale for being in a wire service is MUCH weaker when we are dealing with small order volumes, especially on the SEND side. The fixed monthly fees alone eat up all of the marginal net profit and more - to say nothing about the toll that the 20% commissions, 7% clearinghouse fees, and $1.75 per incoming order transmission fees take on operating profits.