This month, Ron Burley of the AARP Magazine showed readers how to fight ‘company policy’ at 1-800-Flowers and get their money back for faulty products and services. The AARP member’s flower gift had arrived two days after Mother’s Day and was dead on delivery, ”crushed and brown,” and the company has refused to refund the cost or replace the whithered blooms.
Burley described 1-800-Flowers’ customer service as being ‘belligerent’, ‘testy’ and ‘obstinant’ and finally had to resort to contacting senior executives at the company to obtain a refund.
Joseph D. Pititto, vice president of investor relations at 1800flowers.com, finally promised the customer satisfaction and assured that “the company and the partner florist involved have taken measures to ensure that such an episode doesn’t happen again.”
But in this week’s 1-800-Flowers Be Damned, yet another episode of the customer service run-around by 1-800-Flowers is painfully described by a grandmother trying to send flowers to her severely injured granddaughter. The blogger was so infuriated she vowed
“I would sooner bury my own mother with daisies from the back yard than have to deal with this company again.”
Her flowers finally got delivered, but she was aghast that
“on the backside of the lovely note that I had written was an ad for 15% off when you join the Fresh Rewards Club. Since when is it a good practice to advertise on the back of a gift card?”
In response to a comment, blogger Marie said “we have lost those special customer relations that made shopping a personal experience.”
Sounds nostalgic - but direct customer service without the run-around is plentiful in the flower industry.
Local florists like myself remind all flower buyers that by dealing with a call center instead of direct with the florist that will deliver their flowers, they’ll sacrifice “those special customer relations that made shopping a personal experience”. There is no personal relationship since, as was pointed out in her post, you can’t even speak with the same rep twice.
Numerous commenters recommended the blogger use a local florist next time. We real florists agree. 
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