Unless you’re based in Lost Springs, Wyoming (population: 4), chances are you plan to hire part-time delivery drivers to manage the Valentine’s Day volume next week.
While this position may not necessitate the creativity of a designer or the charisma of a salesman, it does require more than a license and a GPS system.
Once you finalize your selection for your temporary workforce, it’s time to consider their training; transporting flowers is not like carting around carryout. For starters, the product’s about a hundred times more fragile, and recipients rarely place the order themselves.
Rodney Rodriguez, owner of Hailey’s Flower Shop in Orlando, Fla., broke into the industry two years ago as a delivery driver. Now he imparts the skills he learned onto his full-time employees (Rodriguez believes in “cross training” his staff, so everyone understands every function of running the business) who then share it with the six part-time drivers for Valentine’s Day. Each holiday hire shadows a full-time employee for a day of deliveries to learn the specifics of the industry, including:
· Loading the vans: Centerpieces don’t stack like pizzas. Drivers need to cushion tall arrangements so they won’t tip over.
· Handling homeowners’ associations: “The driver should call the recipient to see if they are home,” Rodriguez said. If they are, the driver gets the code; if not, the next step is a leasing office and a message to the recipient. No leasing office? The driver calls back to schedule a second delivery attempt.
· Contacting college students: “Universities are, by far, the most difficult deliveries as GPS does not include the streets that are on college properties, and campus maps are generally useless,” Rodriguez said. (Finding parking, too, is no peach, he added. “Campuses are designed to walk—not drive—to class.”) As with HOA deliveries, the driver should contact the recipient. “But college students don’t answer calls from numbers they don’t recognize,” so Hailey’s drivers text who they are, that they have a flowers and requesting where to deliver them. “If this all fails, the driver has to call to reschedule for the following business day,” Rodriguez said. “You don’t want your driver spending an hour on Valentine’s Day wandering aimlessly on a college campus.”
· And other general hiccups, such as incorrect addresses and recipients who are not home.
"Training may mean a little more expense on payroll for a day or two, but it's well worth it to be your most efficient on the busiest day of the year," Rodriguez said.
While this position may not necessitate the creativity of a designer or the charisma of a salesman, it does require more than a license and a GPS system.
Once you finalize your selection for your temporary workforce, it’s time to consider their training; transporting flowers is not like carting around carryout. For starters, the product’s about a hundred times more fragile, and recipients rarely place the order themselves.
Rodney Rodriguez, owner of Hailey’s Flower Shop in Orlando, Fla., broke into the industry two years ago as a delivery driver. Now he imparts the skills he learned onto his full-time employees (Rodriguez believes in “cross training” his staff, so everyone understands every function of running the business) who then share it with the six part-time drivers for Valentine’s Day. Each holiday hire shadows a full-time employee for a day of deliveries to learn the specifics of the industry, including:
· Loading the vans: Centerpieces don’t stack like pizzas. Drivers need to cushion tall arrangements so they won’t tip over.
· Handling homeowners’ associations: “The driver should call the recipient to see if they are home,” Rodriguez said. If they are, the driver gets the code; if not, the next step is a leasing office and a message to the recipient. No leasing office? The driver calls back to schedule a second delivery attempt.
· Contacting college students: “Universities are, by far, the most difficult deliveries as GPS does not include the streets that are on college properties, and campus maps are generally useless,” Rodriguez said. (Finding parking, too, is no peach, he added. “Campuses are designed to walk—not drive—to class.”) As with HOA deliveries, the driver should contact the recipient. “But college students don’t answer calls from numbers they don’t recognize,” so Hailey’s drivers text who they are, that they have a flowers and requesting where to deliver them. “If this all fails, the driver has to call to reschedule for the following business day,” Rodriguez said. “You don’t want your driver spending an hour on Valentine’s Day wandering aimlessly on a college campus.”
· And other general hiccups, such as incorrect addresses and recipients who are not home.
"Training may mean a little more expense on payroll for a day or two, but it's well worth it to be your most efficient on the busiest day of the year," Rodriguez said.
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