ProFlowers thinks the customer is an idiot!

Posted on February 08, 2010 by Brian Tajuddin

Over the weekend, I ordered flowers for my girlfriend for Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, she is leaving for a vacation on Feb. 14, so we decided to reschedule the day for Feb. 26. The flowers were ordered to be delivered to her office on Feb. 26 in the morning.

This morning, I received an email from ProFlowers (signed by the CEO) that ran like this:

Dear Brian,

     

We're writing to let you know that there has been a change in your recent order (#<removed>) of One Dozen Red Roses w/FREE Elegant Ruby Vase.

       

We noticed that the order appears to be meant for Valentine's Day, but the delivery date selected 2/26/2010 is after Valentine's Day.  Due to the time-sensitive nature of the occasion, we have adjusted your delivery date to 2/12/2010.  This was done to ensure delivery by Valentine's Day.

No action is necessary on your part, but we do want to make sure you are happy with this change.  Please contact us at wecare-AT-customercare.proflowers-DOT-com if you have any questions or concerns.

We appreciate the opportunity to help you celebrate this special occasion.

Sincerely,

Bill Strauss, CEO

 For those who aren't shocked enough yet, let me provide one possible translation of this email:

Dear Brian,

     

We're writing to let you know that you're dumb.

       

We think you're going to be in trouble if we deliver these flowers when you asked us to. You'll probably come back and yell at us for not delivering them in time. In order to save ourselves the hassle of your own stupidity, we're going to prove that we can be more idiotic.  You have less than one week left, so we have adjusted your delivery date to 2/12/2010.  This was done because we're pretty sure you're stupid.

No action is necessary on your part, because we're smarter than you, and this is what you actually wanted anyhow.  Please contact us at wecare-AT-customercare.proflowers-DOT-com to tell us how much we saved your ass.

We appreciate this opportunity to cover for your stupidity about this special occasion.

Sincerely,

Bill "Savior of Stupid Customers" Strauss, CEO

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh. I don't think so. As a retail company, you do not proactively change customer-supplied information. If you suspect something is wrong, you contact the customer to see if they want it changed. You do not do it automatically.

There is just a little more to this story. I sent an email to the address they provided. I didn't get a response within 30 minutes. A couple hours later, I still have no response. I called them, and talked to a very sensible and intelligent woman. Without telling her, she had guessed that the delivery date was later due to the flowers being for something else or that someone was not going to be around. If a customer service representative intuitively knows this, why don't the bigwigs at ProFlowers have any idea that someone might be celebrating Valentine's Day on *gasp* a different day? In any case, she modified my order to set the date to 2/26/2010 again, and all is (hopefully) well with the world. I am trying to find an email address for Bill Strauss, though. I want to personally tell him what an idiotic idea this is. I don't care if it wasn't his idea. His name is on the email.

Thank you ProFlowers for eliminating one more site (plus all their sibling subsidiaries) from my variety of options for shopping online.

Update: ProFlowers has now changed my order 3 times in as many days. After the second time, customer service said they had noted on the order that it was not to be changed again. It was. I have canceled my order. I appreciate the efforts of customer service and the marketing director who commented on this post, but I no longer feel the need to go through this hassle. I am going to order from a local florist after Valentine's Day.

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Comments:

Brian, I just read your blog post and thought it was great. I am personally sorry for your terrible experience. Generally when people choose a selection for Valentine's Day as the occassion, they "usually" want it BEFORE Valentine's Day. That being said, there certainly are exceptions. If you send me any additional feedback, I will make sure it gets passed to Bill. Also happy to help in any way that I can to improve your poor experience. All the best. Hannah Blum Director, Marketing ProFlowers

Posted by Hannah on February 08, 2010 at 07:56 PM PST #

Is proflowers fraudulent? I ordered flowers for Valentine's day and had a guaranteed delivery by friday the 12th. They did not arrive, due to the strom on the East coast I was told, which backed-up everything. OK, fine. They arrived Saturday to my recipient's office. She had to drive 40 minutes one-way to get them. They were dead. OK, fine, due to the other problems they likely sat unwatered too long on a truck or dock in the cold. Called Proflowers, nice woman in customer service; apologized, offered a replacement, I said it was too late, I wanted a refund, she said of course. OK, fine. I recently got an email from Proflowers saying I could get an ADDITINAL 20% off my next order of anything on their site (including specials). They did not give me a coupon code or number to apply; I had to follow the link in the email to get the discount rather than being able to search their website through the homepage or other emails I had recieved (this tactic by Proflowers is crucial to the issue at hand...read on). OK, fine. My dad's 85th B-day is coming up, thought I'd give Proflowers the benefit of the doubt and send Dad some flowers. So I followed the link in question, saw a good price on a dozen roses + a dozen free. I figured I'd get these and then apply the 20% "We're Sorry" discount. So when I click on the "Buy" botton, it goes to the webpage that gives you options on the order. Generally these offers include a free vase. There was no free vase there though; the one that was usually free was $6. OK, fine? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Why? Bear with me. A couple of days before this "We're Sorry" email I received a reminder email from Proflowers that my Dad's b-day was coming up (they have a program; if you enter the dates of which you want to be reminded, you get an email reminder). This email had a "special" offer for flowers for Dad. I checked it out through the link in the email. I then again checked the pricing in the "We're Sorry" email and compared. Same flowers, same picture of the flowers, same discount. OK, fine? NOPE. The thing is, the Dad's reminder email include a free vase. But it did not have the extra 20% discount that the "We're Sorry" deal had. Here is the math. $29.99 (call it $30) for the flowers, plus 20% "We're Sorry" discount, thus $24. Thank you Proflowers? Oh, that's right, I have to pay $6 for the vase. So we are back to $30. Same flowers for Dad's b-day reminder email, $29.99 (call it $30), plus free vase (same vase), so the price is $30 for each offer; in other words, there really wasn't an extra 20% apology. So, instead of refund + we'll send more flowers to replace the original ones that were dead (I didn't request this by the way, just a refund...but it would have beeh nice?), Proflowers sends me the "We're Sorry" email that says they are giving me a 20% ADDITIONAL discount that was, in reality, not a reduction in cost over what I could get by simply going to the homepage. So I guess "We're Sorry" really means "Hey, here's an offer no better than what you would norally get but you probably won't figure it out and mabe we can make the extra six bucks off of you because you are stupid." So OK, fine? Or is it fraudulent to suggest to someone that you are giving them an extra discount when indeed you PURPOSEFULLY are not? Tom

Posted by tom on March 05, 2010 at 01:48 PM PST #

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