Teleflora Email Program

[Knife's Wife]

If you are a member with a site you have access to the information about the program.
I had a TF website for several years, their e-mail program was great.
I submitted test e-mail addresses.
We dropped our TF site over a year ago. TF has not used any one of the test e-mail accounts to market to.

Yes, TF has a long way to go with doing things right, but assuming everything they do is going to hurt the florist is stretching it a bit far.
It is a good program and included in the website fees. If your not going to do your own e-mail marketing than you might as well let them do it for you. And if you don't trust that they will keep it strictly for you than pass on it.

 

[NicoleAtTF]

Nicole,

Trust me I sympathize that sometimes emails can be misunderstood, but my humble suggestion would be that someone review them before they are sent. Considering the size of your membership the chances of a poorly worded email causing you grief (case in point is this one) are great. As I recall you provided the same reasoning (poorly worded) for the recent letter form your CEO suggesting members pull up their socks at Valentines in case the press was watching them.

Oh, I'm with you there, Doug. 100% on board. Now getting everyone else on board is the tricky part. Each of these business units wants to be autonomous and so trying to wrangle this is one of our eternal 'corporate' challenges. It's a work in progress that I'm in the thick of, so we're trying! I promise.

 

[NicoleAtTF]

It would be interesting to read the accompanying documents that TF applies to this program. Reading the part of just how the emails will be used has significance.

I would think they plan to do email campaigns, and they will probably mention your name. Yet, I suspect it's more to promote themselves over time.

If they were interested to promote just your shop they would send the list only with your name. However, I suspect their documents might indicate additional mailings and details of who gets what and who is promoted will be obscure for future mailings.

Just a guess

Actually, Dragonfly is correct. We cannot use e-mail addresses provided by shops for use with their eFlorist e-mail marketing platform. It's against the terms & conditions. The e-mails are created internally, it's true, but you can specify many parts of the e-mail by using the online eFlorist eSAT tool. Most florists do not do this, but it is possible.

 

[duanermb]

If you are a member with a site you have access to the information about the program.
I had a TF website for several years, their e-mail program was great.
I submitted test e-mail addresses.
We dropped our TF site over a year ago. TF has not used any one of the test e-mail accounts to market to.

Yes, TF has a long way to go with doing things right, but assuming everything they do is going to hurt the florist is stretching it a bit far.
It is a good program and included in the website fees. If your not going to do your own e-mail marketing than you might as well let them do it for you. And if you don't trust that they will keep it strictly for you than pass on it.

Concur, Concur, Concur.

If this is available, use it! It's a great way to do what the big boys do without having to do it yourself! Make sure you are on the email list too, and over time, you'll learn what they do, and you can emulate it!

 

[OB1]

Hi Nicole,
Your corporate team-mates would do well to read this thread. It shows how deeply the mis-trust of wire services affects any successful relationship. Even the slightest mistake can lead to deep fissures in a relationship that is already tenuous, and can ultimately prove to be totally destructive.

I appreciate your candor and honest regarding the error, and encourage you to educate your co-workers at head office abut the ramifications of such, and the concerns of the local flower shops who continue drive your success.

I cannot say that I agree with everything that TF does, and, as with most of the huge corporations I must do business with, there are some things that I find infuriating, and sometimes downright dis-respectful.

Having said that, I admit that my initial response to the E-mail campain announcement was incorrect, and I apologise for my response.
I do agree with the others who have voiced their concerns regarding the poor wording of the corporate announcements.
If TF wants to regain any level of trust, they must be more careful to proof, proof, and re-proof before sending out any more information, or they risk the loss of thousands of more members.

Respectfully
Joanne

 

[NicoleAtTF]

Hi Nicole,
Your corporate team-mates would do well to read this thread. It shows how deeply the mis-trust of wire services affects any successful relationship. Even the slightest mistake can lead to deep fissures in a relationship that is already tenuous, and can ultimately prove to be totally destructive.

Respectfully
Joanne

Thank you, Joanne! What's interesting is that is EXACTLY the conversation we've been having as a result. Multiple people have mentioned that they were surprised because, while recognizing the error, they certainly didn't think it was cause for such a response as it's gotten (not just here, but phone calls to customer service, as well). Most of us are fairly new (I can't name too many people who've been in the marketing/eFlorist or similar departments longer than 3 or 4 years), so we sense the distrust but can't truthfully say we understand it or it's origins.

We ARE working to become more cohesive and have better processes to manage our florist-oriented communications to help head off mistakes of our own causing, but I'd also like to remind everyone here that as hard as we try, we're still only human as well. We do make the occasional hasty decision or un-noticed typo. So you'll probably continue to see me apologize at random intervals.

Thanks for the understanding and the honest response. Feel free to call me on things anytime, as long as it's given in a spirit of critique (as opposed to one of abusiveness, which I've gotten on occasion, though fortunately pretty rarely here) I'm always open and happy to hear it and try to improve.

 

[RWK]

and here is a crux of the matter, Here you are again Nicole.......apologizing FOR YOUR BOSSES at Teleflora........not for anything that YOU have done, but for the ACTIONS of someone else.

Now is whe you need to put your foot down and say 'Enough is enough'..........get it right the first time so I don't end up apologizing for you........again.

 

[theflowersmith]

I had a lengthy conversation today with TF web services and they were very helpful. I explained my concern over not purging duplicates and they sent me my email list to check. I was pleased to find that there were no duplicates. They also explained that the list is now updated every 14 days.

They are also helping me with pointing another domain I have to my site with them at no charge. We're really having growing pains here, and any help I can get to free me up is priceless. As much as I like Constant Contact, the time and additional money I'm spending is no longer necessary. I'm feeling better about letting TF have my email contacts.