Funeral flower complaint

Lizi

Well-Known Member
Nov 28, 2007
1,255
515
113
Matthews
www.matthewsflowerboutique.com
State / Prov
NC
I got a complaint this morning at 10am, customer was emailing pictures right away but I have never gotten them. The two photos posted are the ones I took 5 minutes before my husband walked out the door with them to deliver to the church.

The order was placed on Wednesday around noon, I made the spray at 4:30 and put in the cooler. The visitation was Thursday at 10:30 am. At 9 am Thursday I took it out of my cooler and checked all the flowers, at 9:10 I took these pictures of it, my husband delivered it to the church at 9:30.

The customer is saying it was wilting and dead, it was as embarrassment and they were so ashamed of it that they threw it in the trash after the service. He said the roses petals were hanging down and that all the flowers were half dead. He also said the colors were hideous and that he was going to contact Visa and do a charge back, he wasn't paying for dead flowers. Says he has pictures of it beside the casket, but has not sent them like he said he would. I told him I had pictures also.

He was the deceased person father and has ordered from us before and said he's always been very pleased. But that I used dead flowers and it was a totally depressing arrangement. The family was arriving at 9:30 when my husband arrived at the church, he moved our van so the hearse could put under the awning because it was pouring rain. The visitation was at 10:30, if he wasn't happy with it, why didn't he call right away. Why wait 2 days after, there was 1 hour before the visitation for me to make changes if he wasn't happy.

I've been doing flowers a long time and a spray can't look like this and an hour or 2 later be dead unless someone purposefully did something to it. I'm really upset about it, there flowers are not dead, not even old. I told him to have Visa contact me. My return/refund policy on my website states the product must be returned to receive a refund or replacement. Threw them in the trash. I'm not buying that.

This is what was in the spray, not considering the stand, oasis, holder and green. 6 Bells of Ireland, 5 larkspur, 5 blue/purple hydrangea, 7 escimo roses, 4 yarrow, 4 yellow sprays, 5 Veronica. Price was $100. September 2011 216RR.jpgSeptember 2011 217RR.jpg
 
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oh this could get messy.
Visa will side with him.

did you check your junk mail file to make sure his picture is not in there?

I wonder if someone knocked it over and broke part of it or if there were 2 sprays and he is looking at the wrong one?
 
I would do what CHR suggested. Maybe the tags had a mishap and something was marked with your name instead. (some shady florists have been known to change tags). I would email him what you have and ask him specifically what was wrong with it. Telling you flower petals falling off and blah blah is not good enough. That is a beautiful spray. I don't like to argue with family when dealing with funeral pieces but in this case I think you are right to stand your ground. That is a very nice piece and he sure as heck got his moneys worth.
 
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I agree with CHR, that is a very beautiful spray! I'm glad you took pics. Can you talk to the funeral director and get any more insight? Maybe he's colorblind and the hydrangea looked brown to him. Thank God we have plenty of positive customers to make up for a few negatives. Sorry it was your turn.
 
Still haven't received his pictures, and I do not have an email address to send him my pictures. Yeah, he got a great value for 100.00 and I can't afford to loose the sale to a charge back. I knew he was someone that ordered from us regularly and wanted it to look great.

I know people say all sorts of things when they are grieving but he was so rude, wouldn't give me time to say anything, so I just told him to have Visa contact me. I would never send out anything that would hurt our name, I just feel like there is more going on here. When he told me he had pictures of it beside the casket, I said I have pictures also, taken right before it went out the door. That's when he really got rude. I just feel like there is more than is being said. He said they threw it in the trash after the service, if he had an hour between delivery and visitation he should have called me. Just really upset about all of this. I am going to call the funeral home and see if I can find out anything.
 
Lizi,

There is definitely more to this story than what he told you, people do act strangely in grief, especially when it is a child. I would certainly get contact info from the funeral home on this, or at least get that image to the funeral director. I'm certain a mix-up occurred.

That is a lovely spray, and I would charge at least $125 for the same piece. I know how upsetting this must be, I can hardly imagine your dismay! You WILL be vindicated, just take the proper steps.
 
I talked with the funeral director, he remembered my husband delivering the spray along with a plant. He remembered the spray well remarking it was the larger of only 2 sprays and very pretty. There was the 2 sprays, 2 blooming plants(1 from us) 1 vase and casket spray. The FH director said there was more to this, he thought the parents were upset because there was not a lot of flowers or people. We discussed in leu of flowers and how sad funerals are without them. He told me where the grave was and I went to see if the flowers were there, yes they are. We have had terrible storms for 3 days, the spray is rain beat and the roses are mud spattered but the hydrangea, Veronica, spray roses, well all of it still looks good after being rain beat for 2 full days.

The father said everything was so colorful and his wasn't. The casket spray was all white. There was only the casket spray and the one spray I did on the grave.

Still no photos from him. I did take pictures at the grave site. Im going to call him on Monday and talk more about this, if one was thrown away, it wasn't the one I made.
 
I am so glad the director remembers this and that you had a chance to see the arrangement (still looking pretty good from the sound of it). I bet you anything he was just confused, or the tags were messed up. I bet he did toss the other one. You are closer to finding out what happened, now that you have played florist detective :)
 
I feel your pain. A couple of weeks ago we had a funeral director from Milwaukee (southern part of the state-we're in the northern part of the state) call and place an order for a casket spray and a side piece to the tune of about $400. He was placing the order on behalf of one of our customers who lives part time in our town and is a customer of ours when she's in town.

We did the pieces and they looked beautiful. Five days later the customer calls and complains that they didn't last and that some of the flowers were not even all the way into the oasis foam. They had actually taken the casket spray home! And were unhappy because after 5 days it didn't look good!?! She wanted to the whole thing refunded and went on and on about how she would never shop with us again..yada yada. Anything we said just made it worse and we finally ended up doing as she wanted and refunding the whole thing. I'm pretty sure that was her plan from the beginning after the whole thing was said and done. Sometimes it's just not worth it.

Beautiful piece you made BTW.
 
Lizi- I was going to suggest you got out to the grave and lok for yourself! Good Girl!
 
I found more complaints when the funeral is over. This interprets that they have not gotten their money's worth. Taking a casket spray home, this is a new one to me. Most cultures do not take anything from the funeral.
Beautiful job Liz.
 
Beautiful piece and also excellent value.
I cant remember if you said you had taken photos at the grave, but if not I would get back there and take loads of different shots showing the grave as well. Also I would not give him this info. You say he got more abusive when you told him you also had a photo before the piece went out, this means to me that he knows he has been caught out cheating you. If he does get back in touch just ask him to put his problem in writing/email, do not tell him you have spoken to funeral director or seen the grave, because if he does go down the chargeback route he can change his story to match the facts better. Cynical aren't I ? but been there and scammed :(
 
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I found more complaints when the funeral is over. This interprets that they have not gotten their money's worth. Taking a casket spray home, this is a new one to me. Most cultures do not take anything from the funeral.
Beautiful job Liz.

here i have been asked to make sure the casket spray looks nice from both sides as they are taking it to the luncheon after to use as the table center..
 
I've decided that I will call him tomorrow and tell him that I need him to put his complaint in writing and to email any photos that he has so that this matter can be resolved. I stand by my work 100% but there was nothing wrong with the flowers and unless he can show me otherwise there will be no refund. I really think he is mixed up on which spray was his. Also I always write a description of each arrangement on the back of the sympathy card, so if the cards were switched by someone they should be able to tell from that. I'm not going to give him any info just want to see what he will tell me, hopefully he will not be quite as upset as he was Friday.
 
One thought on the spray... in bright light the purple hydrangeas would show well. If the church was dark and poorly lit, the other flowers in yellow and white would show well, but the hydrangeas could appear as empty spaces due to their dark colors. He also may not recognize Bells of Ireland as 'flowers' and seen them just as 'greens'. Did he request yellow and purple?

We try to avoid dark purples and dark blues in sympathy designs since they aren't as easily seen as whites or bright colors.
 
CHR, he didn't request any color, just ask for something to go by the casket and gave a price. I always avoid burgundy in funeral work but have never really noticed purple or blues not really showing up well. I will remember that. The church is huge, seats about 2000, if there was only the casket spray, 2 standing sprays, 1 vase and 2 plants I'm sure the entire setup looked totally lost in comparison to the size of the altar area. It is possible that the lights were low, not sure since my husband was instructed to leave the flowers in the entry because the casket hadn't even been set up. Still don't get that everything was colorful but his piece. Casket spray was all white, the celosia we sent was that fuchsia color, the other plant was a mum, the director said he thought it was brown (bronze) and he described the vase as being mums also. I guess I'll have to wait until he emails pictures. Not sure about the other spray, the director said it was smaller, but it wasn't on the grave. I don't want an unhappy customer, but since he's always been pleased with our work I felt sure they would be pleased with it. Certainly didn't expect to get remarks like hideous. Guess I just have to see how this pans out.
 
Couldn't reach my customer yesterday. I just called and when he answered the phone instead of saying hello, he said, what do you want? I told him I would like to discuss the situation with the flowers, he told me he had just gotten back to his home and was trying to get over his grief, so what did I want. I told him I would just let him call me when he and his wife got settled in since they were just getting in from the airport. We'll just have to see where this goes.