WS internal social network?

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Goldie,
Even though she is just an employee, she must be aware of the problems that exist...and the hostility that there can be...

I don't think that anyone was harsh or mean to her...The questions need to be asked...I finally learned that when the diamonds and roses promo happened...They are a company that does things to advance their bottom line, rightly so, but I am of the opinion that I need to question every action that they take especially if they say it is for us...I can no longer believe that anything they do is for us, because if it was for us they would be not going up on charges and not spending 3 million dollars on one ad, do you know how many ads they could have taken out with local associations to help the florists with that money???
 
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Joe Mioux said:
I don't think that would work well.
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I used to be entirely against the WS being a part of this forum but I think the wisdom that I have gained here at FC is changing my mind. However, (you knew that was coming) I think it should be a seperate forum that FC members can choose to join or not. I would like to see more limited access to the real florist forum.
 
Nicole,

I truly appreciate that you have the forward thinking ability to come to flowerchat and actually speak to florists. I think that the other posters do have very valid concerns and points. However, looking on the positive side, a forum in myteleflora might be a good thing. Something extra as a benefit of being a member.

You can have tips on designing the specific bouquets from the website.

A section where TF board members can interact and help other states as far as scheduling design shows, etc. I know that our local board does have difficulty from time to time and might benefit from this.

Perhaps you can record the TF education classes for those of us who cannot attend (kind of like Ubloom but specfiically for TF members only).

A section where you can give suggestions that people at TF actually consider. Like not forcing small florists to take 24 of a container that they will never sell more than 6. Posting the shipping charges prior to purchasing. etc. etc. etc.

There can be a lot of good come of it but there also needs to be more of an interaction between TF and its members. If TF truly feels that they are providing a much needed service to florists, then lets put the service back into the equation and stop nickle and diming the florists right out of business.
 
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lori042499 said:
Goldie,
Even though she is just an employee, she must be aware of the problems that exist...and the hostility that there can be...
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Lori, as an intern-employee, she is not authorized to answer the questions related to company policies, large or small. She could offer her personal opinions, but that would be risky because her identity is already revealed.

If she offered general non-answers, such as "Please direct these questions to such and such", she will likely be ridiculed for not answering questions.

I think that's the biggest reasons that some members here chose not to post. Some people here have a very strong opinion on certain issues. They won't let it go unless they have the last word.
 
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lori042499 said:
What exactly do you want to get out of something like that?

What purpose would it serve?

Would it be sensored by TF if people wanted to rant about the problems within your company and the unfair practices that TF currently denies exists? If you have people networking in public, TF would have to own up to the problems that from you flowers and the likes create..How will that work?

I would believe like anything else TF does they will get from it what they need to work against us, but make it seem like this is something we want and anything that hurts them they will remove like it doesn't exist, so why bother?

You asked, I responded, ball is in your court!!!!

I would love some candid answers to these questions, thanks
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We would be hoping to get EXACTLY the kind of feedback you're all offering to me here. The thing that I perhaps didn't make clear is that it would be part of the MyTeleflora website which is not public, per se, but is password protected and accessible only to network florists and Teleflora HQ people.

I agree that many companies like ours would not want to host such discussions in public, but because it would be in a closed community, I envision (and have so far gotten support for the idea) a community where the members are allowed to have their full say, with some monitoring for impolite content like cursing or hate speech. We'd be completely open to critique and could hopefully offer insight that helped answer your questions.

Our goal with the changes to MyTeleflora would be to learn how you feel in a more candid way, to address your questions and issues as best we can (I'm sure there WILL be times when our responses won't seem sufficient, but the best we can do is offer the truth and be open to suggestion). Teleflora IS a business, so there may be times when what we feel we need to do to make our business successful doesn't align 100% with what you all would like to see us do. However, our best successes come when we can help our florist partners be as successful as possible, so we are always trying to create situations that profit you.

Hope that's a candid and sufficient enough answer?
 
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BOSS said:
Why don't the folks from TF just come here?

Why does TF not mention FlowerChat in their publications?

The work's already done... no need to reinvent the wheel...
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Boss-
I'm all in support of continuing to learn from folks here at FlowerChat, but a TF community (and I"m thinking more than just forums, which are some of the things I'm hoping to get feedback on whether people would use), would do two things for us at TF:
1) FlowerChat is so popular that we can't possibly track the great volume of things going on here since we don't have back-end rights; with our own community, reviewing things should go more quickly because we would have admin privileges
2) The topics could be more specific; we definitely would not expect to replace FlowerChat in anyway but would hope to use our own site as a source for feedback and opinion more targeted to what people experience with TF

I do hope that I (and others from TF) remain welcome here to engage and listen but FlowerChat isn't the right place for us to try and interact the way we could with a more private community.
 
CHERYL BAKIN said:
Goldie:
Not trying to gang up on her...just trying to offer her a legimate starting point.

She is going to try and start a forum. she wants to know what WE want to discuss, and what is important to us.

I (we) want to know: First, what are the ground rules? How will it operate? Will your bosses really read & learn and respond and listen?

I think that she is getting some legitimate feed back here.

Cheryl
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Cheryl-
Ground rules would be set once a community were built. The things I anticipate we would censor would be minimal but specific: curse words, hate speech. We would likely try to limit (but probably more through follow-up questions and less through deletion) statements of negative opinion that have no detail (by this I mean "I hate such and such" without any rationale or back-up).

I hope that it will operate in a way such that TF provides a community manager to help keep things alive and moving, florists are the primary community with Teleflora staff members who check in on a regular basis, answer questions, ask questions, share information, etc. We would not open it up to the full TF corporate offices but rather have representatives of many departments who log in and interact.

I do hope that we have a place to share photos of whatever people chose to share, whether they're bouquet designs or pictures of their shop or new trucks, etc. Perhaps we could share video around "Share a Smile" week of what different shops are doing to participate. I love the idea that Flowerchatter03 posted about sharing videos of training sessions!

You are such a creative group of people, I know that there will be sections of the site that would be given over to questions, complaints, etc. but I can't imagine it would be everything. The opportunity to share new ideas, tools, tricks, and a chance for TF internal experts to participate in that could be very strong and help build some of what I (in my 3 weeks with TF) have noticed might be a lack of regular, everyday discussion with all of you, the florists who help keep things moving.
 
NicoleAtTF said:
We would be hoping to get EXACTLY the kind of feedback you're all offering to me here. The thing that I perhaps didn't make clear is that it would be part of the MyTeleflora website which is not public, per se, but is password protected and accessible only to network florists and Teleflora HQ people.

I agree that many companies like ours would not want to host such discussions in public, but because it would be in a closed community, I envision (and have so far gotten support for the idea) a community where the members are allowed to have their full say, with some monitoring for impolite content like cursing or hate speech. We'd be completely open to critique and could hopefully offer insight that helped answer your questions.

Our goal with the changes to MyTeleflora would be to learn how you feel in a more candid way, to address your questions and issues as best we can (I'm sure there WILL be times when our responses won't seem sufficient, but the best we can do is offer the truth and be open to suggestion). Teleflora IS a business, so there may be times when what we feel we need to do to make our business successful doesn't align 100% with what you all would like to see us do. However, our best successes come when we can help our florist partners be as successful as possible, so we are always trying to create situations that profit you.

Hope that's a candid and sufficient enough answer?
Click to expand...



Nicole, Thanks for your answers, they are appreciated...


I would love to see this type of forum on TF especially if TF will be involved and taking suggestions...There are a great many things that I see TF needs to change to become viable in the florist community in the future and would like to be heard...

I would love a place to voice my concerns of needed a WS less and my technology more and not being able to have one without the other...I do believe that your company will need to evolve into two separate departments that can be paid for by florists ala cart. The way the company is now, I am locked into the WS end because I choose to have your technology even though the WS end does not make 100% sense for my business...I am in essence being held hostage and TF is taking ransom every month from me.

I think that TF could learn alot of things from something like this, I just hope that it wouldn't be more things about our weaknesses as an industry...That would be my main concern, because that would be bad...
 
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NicoleAtTF said:
Boss-

I do hope that I (and others from TF) remain welcome here to engage and listen but FlowerChat isn't the right place for us to try and interact the way we could with a more private community.
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I do understand, and I was **partly** being sarcastic** having tried to get Jack here for years...

Do you think it's cuz I'm not a member of TF that I'm not taken seriously ;) (rhetorical question)

The one thing to think about Nicole... as the web evolves we all have various places we monitor, I for one have little time for *another* venue to keep track of...

One other thing, the main reason the old FTD BBS died, was because no one from the company gave any *real* answers... If TF is going to simply put up a set of electronic venues, without worthwhile involvement from people that can do something about an issue, or take the thoughts posted seriously...why bother?
 
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Worthwhile

BOSS said:
One other thing, the main reason the old FTD BBS died, was because no one from the company gave any *real* answers... If TF is going to simply put up a set of electronic venues, without worthwhile involvement from people that can do something about an issue, or take the thoughts posted seriously...why bother?
Click to expand...

As the person **trying** to set this up, that is one of the things that I'm pushing very hard on: people with the authority to make decisions and resolve issues quickly MUST be using the site and responding.

I can't promise they'll listen to their resident nerd ;) but I have tried to impress upon them exactly your point. I'll probably even print this out and wave it around a lot as we continue to talk about doing it. :)
 
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Yes, Nicole is just an employee. But she is a TELEFLORA employee, and as one that works for TF she represents them. If Nicole wants to be part of this community, she is going to hear us with our good & bad experiance with them. If TF would just do the job they tell us they would provide when we sign up with them things would be great. I just feel they misrepresent themselves!
 
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santosdesigns said:
Yes, Nicole is just an employee. But she is a TELEFLORA employee, and as one that works for TF she represents them. If Nicole wants to be part of this community, she is going to hear us with our good & bad experiance with them. If TF would just do the job they tell us they would provide when we sign up with them things would be great. I just feel they misrepresent themselves!
Click to expand...

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I wasn't clear probably. Please let me try again.

In a corporation, employees have limited authority to speak about company policies. The reason is that, if each employee starts talking about policies, it will ultimately confuse clients.

For example, Nicole was asked what TF would do in this or that situation. That's company policy issue and she is not a decider of policies. She can recite the written policies but cannot offer what she thinks. She is not authorized to do that.

If she did, she would be crossing the boundary of her authority and, in a certain case, could be dismissed.

She could offer her own personal opinions. In that case, however, she must use her own computer (not TF computer), use her own private time (not work hours), and register here as a private citizen. She should do all those just to protect herself.
 
It's true I can't talk about policy, which is why I'm trying to keep all of my responses centered around what I'm trying to propose for a TF internal community. I can talk quite openly about the planning process because it's not set in stone, yet, and I'm actively seeking your feedback. :)

Thank you, Goldfish, for helping make that point.
 
BOSS said:
You might want to remove my name from it, or they'll think your a wacko, just like the do me ;)
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....i WANT them to think I am a wacko

....because I am!:scatter
 
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Nicole

It couldn't hurt to offer this on the Myteleflora site.

This way it would be limited to its members that could share ideas with other members and give feedback on products and services.

But since I have used the Eagle Forum on the Myteleflora.com i haven't really seen enough there or responses from the tech support through the forum. After watching it for about a month I gave up.

Its one thing to propose these ideas but its another to continue to montior and have reliable support for the Forum.

As always many of us are just sitting and waiting to see if anything will happen. There is plenty of information here on this site for Non teleflora members and Teleflora members.

I think if you spent some time "searching" through this site you can figure out what you need to do.
 
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