The letter below is a response to the CBS Early Show's segment, What Florists Won't Tell Valentine Buyers
Dear Ms. Gallagher,
As a Professional woman business owner of a Real Flower Shop, I can only hope that your research on “What your Florist won’t tell you” is not an example of the research you do on money topics. After all, I read them and count on your information to be accurate.
Perhaps researching “What a Real Florist wants you to know” would have been a better topic. The idea that “we rip customers off” or “send dead flowers” or “don’t deliver on time” raises the question…Where are you getting your information from? I have been in business for 14 years, work 360 days a year and take great pride in my shops reputation. I invite you and Julie Chen down for the Holiday…bring your sneakers, leave the makeup off, and plan to get your hands dirty. You’ll have to answer phones, deal with customers who haven’t a clue as to what they want, process roses…that’s the real fun to our business, move buckets full of flowers and water from the refrigerated trucks into the design room, blow up balloons, go in and out of the coolers, help route all of the orders and cross check to see that each order has the balloon, the bear and the chocolate candy and card, make sure the order gets their on time, sweep up all day long so that you are not climbing over a mound of cleaned leaves…are you getting excited yet about working with us? When should we expect your arrival????
As a Real Professional Florist, this is what I want you as a consumer to be aware of.
I want you to have a great experience when you buy flowers. I want you to come back for other occasions, so why would I “rip you off” on one holiday. I want you to see the value of having an “ohh and ahh specialist” at your finger tips that can get your order across town on the same day, delivered already arranged and to notify you by email when it was delivered and who signed for it. I want you to know that I can guide you in making the proper choice of flower selections for sympathy tributes. I want you to know that on your wedding day, we will be there to make your dream come true. I want you to know that no request is too silly and that your secret crush on someone is a secret only we will ever know.
Do I think there are “florists” out there that aren’t Real Florists? Oh yes…some are the very ones that you recommended to the viewers to use today. As an example, Proflowers is a middleman drop ship company who has taken time this holiday to blast the local Real Florist to the consumer, all the while failing to reveal that they also call us when they cannot get the job done, that they leave their delivery at the door regardless of the weather and that “field fresh” are storage centers in Miami, Philadelphia and several others across the country where flowers are already sitting.
Did you research what an Order Gather is before you went on the air…do you know what they are? Did you know that some of them are located out of the country and yet the local phone companies allow them to advertise in the local phone books, often with phony address, taking orders that they skim money from and then sending the reduced dollar amount order to a local florist to fill? There is not law that prevents that….but you could inform the public about that if you did your research.
So next time, before you go on the air talking about what a florist “does” or “doesn’t want you to know”, you really should have some "hands on research" as to what a Real Professional Florist does do. So pack your bags and head to sunny Florida for the ride of a lifetime and then you can say you did your research!
Sherry Tannozzini
Flowers From The Rainflorist, Inc
954-741-8900
Fort Lauderdale, Fl