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1-800-Flowers? No, thanks.

1800_flowers_no_thanks1-800-Flowers and other online services like FTD and teleflora are at best a waste of money.  All they do is take your order, skim a fee off the top, and call a local florist to place the order.  The local florist loses the fee.

1-800-Flowers silently cancelled my Mother’s Day order.  They didn’t bother to tell me.  On their web site, when I logged in and checked my order, it said something like “Due to high order volume, no status is available.”   Later, the status changed to cancelled, with no explanation.  They never sent an email or text to let me know there was a problem.  I contacted customer service, and basically got blown off.  You can read the chat log below.

Like a lot of people have said things like, “In our final analysis, we think the best value for your money– with the least frustration- is to call a local florist and order your flowers directly.”  Yeah, I second that.  Better for you, better for the florist.

Thank you for choosing 1-800-flowers.com. A representative will be with you shortly.
You are now chatting with CustSvc.
CustSvc: Hello!  How can I help you with your order today?
You: looking at <order number redacted>
You: why was part of it cancelled
You: ?
CustSvc: I apologize for the inconvenience.
CustSvc: I’ll be happy to help you with that!
CustSvc: I’ll do everything possible to resolve this for you.
CustSvc: May I have your first and last name, your recipients first and last name and the date your order was scheduled to be delivered please?
You: thx
You: me: Greg Porter
You: her: <name redacted> (mom)
You: date: mother’s day weekend
CustSvc: Thank you for that information. I will try and location your order and see why it was cancelled.
You: I saved her address in my account in the address book, that’s a valid street address, that’s where she has gotten things delivered before
CustSvc: I’ll be right with you.
CustSvc: Okay. With the information you’ve provided to me, I was able to locate your order and I see that it was cancelled because the florist was not taking anymore order for the day.
You: its a bummer because she thinks I blew her off
CustSvc: With the information you’ve provided to me, I was able to locate your order and I see that it was cancelled because the florist was not taking anymore order for the day.
You: i usually find a local florist and order with them directly so i dont get hassles like this
You: an email or text like “hey, order was cancelled, sorry” *BEFORE* Sunday would have been nice
CustSvc: I apologize for the inconvenience.
You: i still dont have a status of cancelled in my email… if i hadnt inquired I would have assumed it was fine
You: bakersfield has 350,000 people in it and dozens of florists, you guys couldn’t find one to deliver?
CustSvc: I’m sorry about that.
You: i need to do something to let her know i didnt forget
CustSvc: What I will do for you is have a call placed to her and let her know for you.
You: i think you guys should send her something nice with a note like “Hi, Greg tried to send this to you last weekend, but we dropped the ball. Please accept our profuse apologies. 1-800-Flowers.”
CustSvc: I’m very sorry but we will not be able to have that done however, we will have a call placed to her and let her know that you did not forget the occasion.
You: hmm
You: well, you can add me to the “not happy with 1-800-Flowers” list.
You: tell the computer geeks there that failure notices are at least as important as success notices.
CustSvc: if you like, we can arrange to have the order delivered since the florist will be able to take the order at this time.
You: if i had known that it was not going to be delivered i would have made other arrangements
You: no thanks
CustSvc: No problem. Would you like for us to have the call placed to her?
You: yes please
CustSvc: No problem. I will go ahead and have that done for you right away.
You: i guess we’re done
CustSvc: I’m sincerely and very sorry for the inconvenience. It was my pleasure assisting you today. Is there anything else that I can assist you with at this time?
You: no. bye.

greg.porter

2 Comments

  1. I wish I had of seen this before I placed an order with 1 800 Flowers! Never again will I use this company. EVER!!! My daughters boy friend of 7 years passes a way, I send a plant she went to the store missed them by 10 min. She called them tells them to come back and they ask her to come pick the plant up! Really? She told them she was a little busy making funeral arrangements and to keep the plant! I called them to ask if the company could go back out and after waiting for them to call and see what they could do for me, they tell me the florist is really busy and could not come back! That’s it! Never again will I ever use this company! I’m so pissed right now!

  2. 1-800-Flowers is awful. I sent flowers to my mother from them 2 yeas ago and they arrived dead. Hoping that things had improved, I gave them one more chance today. BIG MISTAKE.
    ONLY AFTER payment was made, did I realize that the candy ordered would not arrive fore a week and that the acceptable delivery time for the flowers was up until 7PM. I immediately called their ”customer service” center and spent 30 minutes trying to change the candy delivery date to an acceptable date as well as try to ensure that the flowers arrived prior to 5PM and not 7PM. That individual was so inept I dialed customer service again on another line (while still on hold mind you), and spoke with a woman who assured me that the order would be canceled. She said that it would take a few moments as they do not have access to online orders. WTF? While speaking with her, the 1st gentleman came back on the line and I told him I was canceling the order with someone else. Expecting this to be a waste of my time, I also sent a message online to 1-800 Flowers and reiterated that the order was canceled and to refund my money.
    Never-the-less and to be expected with companies of their caliber, the flowers arrived AFTER I HAD ALREADY PURCHASED THEM ELSEWHERE FROM A COMPETANT COMPANY AND 5 HOURS AFTER I CANCELED THE ORDER.

    I attempted 3 times to cancel this order immediately after placing it and they refuse to refund my account. All I get is some template response indicating that the flowers were delivered and that they look forward to my next purchase. NEVER AGAIN

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