Profile of an Ideal Florist Customer

I am part of a couple of marketing groups at the local level.

I'm the co-organizer of the Victoria Marketing Meetup Group and also an active member of the Top 100 Victoria Referral Group on LinkedIn.

Someone at one of the groups asked me the other day of what our "ideal customer" would look like.

What a great question!

I've never really thought of it.

There have been a number of fantastic customers that have been very kind to Simon Says Roses over the years, but one client in particular comes to mind.

She is a realtor of higher end properties in the GTA, and loves to send Toronto gourmet food baskets to her customers. She also sends gourmet baskets in Germany to her family as well.  Every year since 2005, she orders 10-12 of these baskets, each for $100 plus.

Meaty cheesy gourmet food basket

But it's not the money (hey, we're not complaining).

It's the conversation. Once the order details have been taken, we take the time to chat. It's only for 5 or 10 minutes, but it's a time I think we both look forward to.

Because we've made a connection.

We've built a relationship.

We've never met in person, but I feel that we've known each other for years.

She could easily Google the 150 plus florists in the Greater Toronto area to find a shop "close by" to her delivery address, but she doesn't.

She prefers to deal with me.

This customer has forced me to remember the reason why I love this business. It's not just the product whether it's a flower arrangement, plant basket, or fruit or gourmet basket. It's not the price, as you can always find cheap flowers if you look hard enough. It's not even necessarily the customer service with emailing back & forth with Order Confirmations, Delivery Confirmations, our feedback survey, or answering customer inquiries.

It's the connection (written or voice) over a long period of time that our customers depend on.

Like an old dog, our customers rely on us. They become part of our extended family. We depend on each other.

That's what makes business enjoyable...and I certainly don't forget it!

Killing Anonymous Orders

We process lots of different orders, from many different senders.

It's rare, but some flower orders we just have to refuse....on principle.

At Simon Says Roses, we recently received an online order with the following information:

Billing Information

 

Delivery Instructions

Now let's get serious.

No contact information for the sender.

No name, no address, and a phone number that we couldn't find through http://www.whitepages.ca/ our trusted resource for researching information.

Instructions not to let the recipient know who the flowers came from.

An unsigned greeting card.

What are we to think?

Stalker?

Ex-lover?

Too shy to reveal?

Will she really appreciate the gesture, or spend the rest of the day "freaking out" about who sent the gift?

Will she associate our name with this deed?

It doesn't matter, as this order was killed before it hit our point of sale system.

We need to know some basic information about our customers. This order didn't meet those criteria.

In the end, not all business is good business, so on this order we had to pass...

International flower orders can be difficult

It's normally an easy process.

Go to the Simon Says Roses website, click on the image or the text link below, and place your order online.

But sometimes the easiest things are hard to do.

Especially when you're overseas, and the bank puts a block on your credit card. They often do that, to protect you from unauthorized purchases.

But when it's legitimate, it can be a royal pain in the *ss.

We had an order the other day from a customer in Tokyo, Japan wanting to send flowers in Toronto.

The credit card "declined". The point-of-sale system doesn't tell us why it was declined, just that it couldn't be processed. It could be that the card number is input incorrectly, or the expiry date was wrong.

Or...it could be that the bank wouldn't allow an international transaction.Which we determined after a number of back & forth emails.

We had 3 days time before delivery date, so our customer had plenty of time to get the block removed.

Thankfully it got resolved, but please remember to give us some lead time...just in case there are "unusual" problems to get fixed!