FTD has lost me for a customer. I trusted them for over 30 years.
I ordered my moms Mother’s Day flowers last Sat for delivery Thursday. They didn’t show up. Waited until this afternoon (Friday) thinking they’d deliver a little late.
Called customer service and after 20 minutes on hold the rep said they’d upgrade the order and deliver Sat.
50 minutes later I get a call saying Nope no flowers at all. None of the local shops will accept the order after 2pm Friday. I could get a refund or accept delivery next Tuesday. So now she gets her Flowers 2 days late.
Never again will I use FTD. I don’t know whats happened to this company. This was the first year I used the Web instead of calling the 800 number. I’ll never order from them again that’s for sure.
My mom turns 80 this Dec. We just lost my dad 8 months ago. Every Mothers Day is so precious right now. How many do we have left? I’m dropping everything and driving down this weekend. It’s the least I can do after FTD screwed us over.
I just had flowers delivered to my mom yesterday via 1-800-FLOWERS, and have used them a few times in the last couple of years, always through their website. Haven’t had a real hiccup to date.
To the OP, that’s really crappy. Even if you aren’t going to use FTD again, I’d send an email to one of the company executives and just share with them what happened. They owe you more than just a late delivery. I’m still a little blown away that it was a refund OR Tuesday delivery, rather than AND. That’s just awful customer service.
I’ve had bad luck with flowers before, but I can’t remember now which company it was with. Since then, I try to find a local florist and call in an order by phone, because I’ve lost all faith in online flower conglomerates.
The last time I had to send flowers to someone, I figured that if I used FTD, 1-800-FLOWERS or a similar company, they would take a cut (25% or so) and pass the order onto an affiliated local florist. So I attempted to directly contact a local florist. I think I called the one that won the “Best of” readers’ poll in the local alternative weekly newspaper. My mother was very pleased with the flowers she received. (But then she chided me for wasting money on flowers. She’s really very practical for the most part.)
I just called a florist in my mom’s town this morning. I picked an arrangement off their website, and they assured me it would be delivered tomorrow. Easy Peasy.
The main reason I went with FTD is because they have pictures of what they offer. Otherwise I never know what in the heck to order. give me six roses, or six carnations. Boring as hell. With FTD you see exactly what you’re ordering on the web site. They even have the pictures grouped by holiday.
But, from now on, its a long distance call to the local hometown Florist and I’ll stumbled around trying to figure out what flower arrangement works best for mothers day.
Anyone else old enough to remember the Merle Olson FTD commercials? That’s what started me using FTD thirty years ago.
Yes, the big chains like FTD have photos on their websites. But I have to wonder whether every florist in every podunk town has the flowers to match the pictures.
It’s been my experience that florists are generally happy to put something together for you. I’ll tell them over the phone: “It’s for her birthday, I want to spend about $40, lots of yellow, and she doesn’t like lilies.” And inevitably, I’ll get a call from the recipient saying how pretty the flowers are. Don’t forget, it’s a florist’s job to arrange pretty flowers - there’s a good chance they enjoy a chance to be creative once in a while instead of arranging yet another FTD style #403 to send out.
IIRC, The 1-800-Flowers episode of Undercover Boss seemed to agree with this. At least one of the employees was talking about wanted to refresh the catalog, or create something new.
I think letting them be creative..make something with the particular flowers they have, instead of the generic set up..is great.
My suggestion: Go to a local florist that has a Teleflora sticker on their door. Pick out what you want and they’ll send a message to a florist in your mom’s town who will build the same design (or something very similar) and get it out to her, often the same day.
I’ve only sent things via Teleflora a few times, but if you order a fruit basket and it comes through a florist on my side of town, I’ll likely be the one building it so I do have a bit of knowledge of the system just from talking to some of the people that use it.
It may be worth a shot.
Alternatively, just call a florist in your mom’s town and skip the Teleflora charge (I think it’s less then $10).
I decided to try a local flower shop this year. Mistake.
The “regular” arrangement looked thin, so I ordered the “deluxe”, which came with 20 tulips instead of 10. Well, it came, and my wife answered the door, and there were only 10 tulips. Having paid extra for extra tulips, I was irked. So, I called them up, and they sent someone (the owner, apparently) to exchange it with something else, because they’re out of the purple tulips. I had to run out, so my wife is there by herself for the exchange again.
I don’t know what happened to the flowers in this second arrangement, but they look dead. It’s the most depressing arrangement I’ve ever seen. I have a picture on my phone, and I’ll put it somewhere if y’all want to see it. I thought maybe the flowers were just cold and needed time to warm and perk up. Nope, two days later, still a “Good Luck On Your Impending Suicide”-cheer-level bouquet.
Bah. Anyway, my mother raved about an outfit that I think is called “Pro Flowers” or something similar. They actually ship the flowers and vases in boxes, UPS-style, and you assemble it yourself. According to her, the flowers are very pretty and last a very long time.
Went through FTD this year for flowers for my mother and my ex-wife. Ordered them on Thursday. They arrived on Saturday from a florist local to each. No problems as usual. The flowers were beautiful.
Yeah, they did a reasonable job for me recently. But I did get on the email list of every one of their six affiliates and it took a bunch of clicking to unsubscribe. I probably missed one of those already selected “click here to be on our mailing list” check boxes. No big deal, cause I used my trash email account, but still, mildly irritating.
So now she gets her Flowers 2 days late.
