Consumer News: January 2008 Archives

Because according to a 1800Flowers.com customer service rep, pink is out of season.

Blogger, the Trading Goddess, wanted to send pink flowers and ordered a "Florist Select European Hand Tied Bouquet", relying on the product photo to make her purchasing decision. (It displayed a mixed pink and white bouquet wrapped in pink paper.)  

While the bouquet description mentions "Components will vary", it's hardly clear that the colors will be chosen by the delivering local florist, too.

The Trading Goddess summarizes the frustrating conversation with CSR 'Dora' during her complaint call to 1-800-Flowers:

"I told her how important the color pink was, and solely due to the photo on their website, was the reason I choose this bouquet. I told Dora that I would have purchased the larger bouquets if they had the pink pic that went along with the description, which it did not. There was only the "small" choice for the color pink.

Well, Dora repeatedly told me that the description says "Florist Select" and that means their choice of color. She repeatedly said that they choose from the flowers that are in season and that the pink was not in season."

The testy exchange between the shopper and CSR rep is reminiscent of other customer service run-arounds with 1800flowers.com.

I'm guessing that company will fix the product description to make is clear that color choice isn't an option, but they also need to work on training the CSR's to stop blaming customers and giving out lame excuses for why the flowers don't look like the picture.

Honestly, every professional florist knows that pink is only out of season in October. ;) 

This post is third in a series. See Why Your Flowers Don't Look Like the Picture - Part 1 and Why Your Flowers Don't Look Like the Picture - Part 2 for more details about avoiding disappointment when ordering flowers online.