Maybe a little gentler & kinder??

[carol]

I know we 'real florists' have a hard battle and get kinda mad at the world around us trying to take over our industry but maybe we need to re-think some of our choices.
I sent an order for roses (75.99) to a town about 55 miles away. Sent by merc at 3:10 pm Monday for delivery Tues Wed or Thurs (remember we had a big storm coming) . Got a del.confirmation message 30 minutes after.. kind of strange but whatever.. Tues. got a price change request at 11:00 am ..needed $89.99 for order or please send a cancel.. so I sent an immediate price change accept. and never gave the order another thought. Now Friday at 4PM customer is mad complaining about non delivery.. so I sent an ASK about it.. adding that I had confirmed the price change within minutes of receiving it and had given them the option for Tues Wed or Thurs...
Well I guess that is when you all had the merc trouble and the florist never got this confirm of the price change...and of course I didn't know there was a problem since my merc was fine. so now today Friday the customer is mad and rightly so.. he got burnt.
Neither the other florist or I really did anything wrong but we messed up a customer and that is a BIG WRONG!!!
The florist never got back to me or forwarded or cancelled this order..she was busy, I never knew anything was wrong and bottom line that florist still had an active order that she was not going to think about again.... because of all her anger at the OG"s and this idea of
"send a price change or cancel this order because I am not doing it unless you do and i am not going to reject this order because it costs me $1.00"
I mean it sounds so good when we are talking about order gathers and them being them being evil and stuff... but in the end all we accomplished was making a flower buying customer mad.
It is easy to forward orders to domestic retrans 90-2825aa and sure it takes about 30 seconds. but what happened today was not right.
:soapbox: Now all you wire service free guys.. please don't jump on this thread.. you all did not sign a contract to be part of FTd .. so it really is no skin off your backs.. you have taken a different path in this field..but the rest of us ..that did sign a contract with FTD... we need to re-think this problem because what we are doing is not good. If you do not want to be responsible for forwarding or rejecting orders that you can not profitable fill than you need to get out of the FTD system or off the mercury & force people to call you instead of relying on the merc. It is not working for you.. so leave it.
According to Mark S, you can tell some of the big OG's that you won't fill for them and they stop sending to you..I rarely get orders from them so I don't know but when I do I forward them to domestic retrans because I don't want any part of their business, don't want to be associated with them, don't want active orders hanging around and I really don't want to be a party to burning flower buying customers

 

[BOSS]

Carol, I feel your pain, I too lost 3 orders because of the Mercury *issues*, but I put the blame squarely where *I* think it belongs and thats with the company that maintains the technology. IMO it's their fault.

To me it was a convenient timing thing that it quit when it did, perhaps my conspiracy theory should include that they planned it to make us look bad... but thats reaching a little.

But, that said, Merc was fine for months...hummed along as it always has, my bet is that this will happen again, just in time for Easter and/or Mothers Day.

I'm thankful for Bloomlink, no matter what ya'll say, I did not have one problem with that or those shops all week.

 

[carol]

Mark, I agree and believe me FTd is sending apology letters..there is no reason why this system should not work at a holiday..that is what we all pay for... No question it was the technology that was at fault

But in the end it is US, real people who need to make our industry work.. and this idea of "send a price adjustment or a cancel because I am not going to be responsible for this order and I will just let it sit" is just not a good enough choice in my humble option. Again.. if we choose to sign a contract for incoming orders ..and we get an order that we cannot, will not or don't want to fill, for whatever reason. we need to be responsible to move it along.. easily done.
Again.. the other florist is a good florist.. she did not set out to mess this up.. but her decision to let it slide since she did not get a response is just not a good choice.. especially when I did send the response and she just did not get it thru the technology. and I am not faulting her for not doing anything else about it on Tues. or Wed but by Thurs. it should have been dealt with.. and definitely by Friday.. one way or another.. the order was left active with her never going to deliver it and just let the $$ come onto her statement.
It is not our fault..but it is our PROBLEM and we either find a way to fix it or it will doom us all

 

[CHR]

Wouldn't the Merc down negatively affect FTD.com, too? If florists' orders don't get out on Merc, neither do theirs. Being unrealiable during the 'Super Bowl of flower holidays' was the last thing FTD would want.

Some folks are going to lose their jobs over this.

It sounds like they had a colossal tech screw up and I' m suprised Wall Street hasn't heard about it. 1-800's stock got downgraded due to V Day weather but FTD's has actually gone up in the last couple days. :dunno:

Carol, the florist should have followed up - but she did everything by the book and Merc failed her - and your customer.

 

[felicityflowers]

Now all you wire service free guys.. please don't jump on this thread.. you all did not sign a contract to be part of FTd .. so it really is no skin off your backs.. you have taken a different path in this field

Carol, you really don't believe that just because some of us aren't WS members that we can't interject intelligently on this issue...or do you? We are all florists here working towards a common goal. It's not the WS members vs. the nons...or at least I hope it's not!

 

[Luc]

FOr valentine, I instruct my staff to phone any florists that we had to send a rose order to make sure of their price. THis way I would not have ot phonemy customer back to get more money. THey are right in the store and we can confirm their roses price right away.

Second. Yes I also hate when techonology breaks down and we think because we get confirmation that everything is alright.
Many time when I get a message back that I will confirm the message with a phone call and then through the dove after.

Do you always frond that these mistakes only happen during a holiday!!!
Maybe i am being paranoid....
I call it the MIkey syndrome.
Luc

 

[BBJ (Big Bad John)]

- but she did everything by the book and Merc failed her -

I don't agree she did everything by the book.............at holiday times we often ask for more money, and if we don't get an answer in reasonable time we will phone and ask about the order...........also the order did say Thursday was fine, and you can't tell me that they didn't have time to get an answer then, (besides Mercury was back on line then). When a florist receives and incoming order it is their responsibility to make sure it gets filled or that the sending shop gets adequate notice that there is a problem.

 

[flowerknife+us]

Wouldn't the Merc down negatively affect FTD.com, too? If florists' orders don't get out on Merc, neither do theirs. Being unrealiable during the 'Super Bowl of flower holidays' was the last thing FTD would want.

Some folks are going to lose their jobs over this.

It sounds like they had a colossal tech screw up and I' m suprised Wall Street hasn't heard about it. 1-800's stock got downgraded due to V Day weather but FTD's has actually gone up in the last couple days. :dunno:

Carol, the florist should have followed up - but she did everything by the book and Merc failed her - and your customer.

I'm sorry I disagree! Who's book? You send a price change, you don't hear back, so you do nothing...? what book is that written in? I am not trying to be argumenative here, just trying to understand where that comes from or the rational behind such a decision. When I don't respond to an inquiry quickly I usually get a rejection from the florist or a courtesy call to see why I haven't. I do the same when I haven't heard on an inquiry or price change request, It's called courtesy and common sense. Busy or not these our the customers we are fighting to keep. Let's not blame this one on the technology as the receiving florist #$$%ED UP!

Knife's Wife

 

[bloomz]

Carol we had a bunch of those - today on non deliveries saying the order(s) had been rejected. Vital messages that didn't come thru. Merc did a collossal skru up and both we and the flower buying public are going to hurt because of it. Had I known I would have gone to the phone but I thought everything was groovy cuz my merc was working fine. Just lots and lots of others weren't and tho my orders and messages were going out fine they were not landing fine. It also appears to me that a lot of messages were simply lost, like the mystery rejections I still haven't gotten.

I'm making a list of all the skru-ups and we are gonna talk. On many of them I have been refunding money and still sending the orders. FTD assures me they have now upgraded their systems and it will not happen again but I don't particularly believe that.

Time to have an alternate in place.

 

[Rhonda]

I'm sorry I disagree! Who's book? You send a price change, you don't hear back, so you do nothing...? what book is that written in? I am not trying to be argumenative here, just trying to understand where that comes from or the rational behind such a decision. When I don't respond to an inquiry quickly I usually get a rejection from the florist or a courtesy call to see why I haven't. I do the same when I haven't heard on an inquiry or price change request, It's called courtesy and common sense. Busy or not these our the customers we are fighting to keep. Let's not blame this one on the technology as the receiving florist #$$%ED UP!

Knife's Wife

I agree, had I not had a return message within a day, I'd probably be on the phone. I know Verizon/ATT or whomever would get me through eventually.
Have been there, done that before. No answer, phone!! But now I am kind of worried about a few orders I sent out the first of the week....

 

[Mikey the Flower Guy]

F
Do you always frond that these mistakes only happen during a holiday!!!
Maybe i am being paranoid....
I call it the MIkey syndrome.
Luc

It IS "the Mikey syndrome"...now even I DON'T TRUST FTD and it's Mercury System anymore, so what the he*l do I need it for??

 

[bluebonnet]

But now I am kind of worried about a few orders I sent out the first of the week....

And you should be!!!! Mine started screwing up off and on Friday the 9th.
Sunday didn't work, Monday off and on a couple of times, Tuesday did not work at all, Wednesday did not work at all, Thursday did not work but maybe 5 min. all day long. ALL OF A SUDDEN !!! FRIDAY IT WORKS FINE!!! along with all the incoming cancels from early week, confirming dels I never got the order to confirm, so on and so on.

So defiantly check your orders and call the florists they probably have no idea you send them anything..

 

[12BucksFor2Dozon]

well, i'll don my tinfoil hat and flat out say it...FTD has many incentives to destroy the publics perceptions of local florists. Why else would its CEO be publicly announcing that it believes the future of FTD is tied to grocers? What better way to get the ball rolling then to make thousands of local florists look bad in the eyes of consumers??

1 + 1 equals 2, my fine FC friends...

 

[BOSS]

Time to have an alternate in place.

:soapbox:

Hey Bloomz.. I know this guy... want me to have him call ya?

Just so you all know how it works... You send a Mercury order, you get a confirmation when it reaches EFOS (ftd's antique computer) in Downers Grove. When you send a Bloomlink order you get a confirmation when it reaches the receiving florist and usually in less than 30 seconds. On some occasions it takes a little longer if it's late in the day depending on the receiving time zone.

Not promoting, just telling it like it is.
:soapbox:

 

[BOSS]

BOSS's Quote of the day!!

FTD has many incentives to destroy the publics perceptions of local florists. Why else would its CEO be publicly announcing that it believes the future of FTD is tied to grocers?

Where's that tin hat of mine?