Shambolic - & utterly disappointing

I have posted a similar review on Interflora's website - I hope they publish it!

Very briefly, they failed to deliver flowers to somebody very special to my partner and me in a well-known London hospital after a miraculous event and very difficult circumstances. It was a highly emotional, personal occasion - which they unceremoniously ruined for us.

The flowers were ordered online at 0830 on a Friday - but delivery was apparently not possible on the same day (really!?) - so I settled for the 'delivery on Saturday between 0700 and 1900' option.

By 1800 Saturday - no flowers had been delivered. I called Interflora (a call centre in Sleaford) and asked them to find out what was happening as I had growing concerns that there was a problem. After being told 'there was still time', I insisted that they check the whereabouts of the flowers: they had been showing on the website tracker as 'Out For Delivery' for the best part of the day.

Now - I thought that Inteflora was based on using a chain of quality Florists - and there's an awful lot of them in that part of London and around - but it appears that the whole process gets outsourced to a Courier service under some circumstances ... they told me that the Courier was Yodel. I have no idea how Interflora checks the competency of a courier company to carry out flower ordering and delivery ...?

After some delving around by the agent, I was told 'the Courier has not been able to deliver'. No other reason was given - and, what is really appalling is that the Interflora staff clearly had no alert system in place to tell them that their processes had failed. THEY should have been calling ME to tell me that there had been a problem - not the other way around!!

I stated pretty strongly that I felt they should arrange for a special delivery on the spot - but was told 'it's 6 o'clock in London and all the florists are closed' !! I have subsequently discovered that that's complete rubbish - just go online and check the 24/7 flower delivery options in London ... it was perfectly possible, just needed some effort and willpower.

However, what Interflora actually appear to have been saying was 'we can't be bothered to do anything proactive or 'extra'- so here's our counter suggestion - refund your money and send a complimentary bunch on Monday'. And that is what happened: no other choice!

Bearing in mind that flowers are given normally at a time when personal issues are at stake and emotions are highly charged - for whatever reason - non-arrival is always going to be a sensitive matter and will HURT people. But Interflora just don't seem to get this - certainly not in our case.

For Interflora to try to commoditise what is essentially a most personal and private action of sentiment and thoughtfulness is completely humiliating. No care, no effort, no real interest in trying to make amends in a way that could have saved the day ON the day: an utter shambles.

I used Interflora out of historic reasons - and never thought for a moment to read reviews on them: but how I wish I had. It seems there's a groundswell of appalling reviews for this Company.

Interflora needs to get its processes sorted out - starting with the customer - and in their business that's the RECIPIENT - yes, really!! They then need to sort out their supply chain and alerting protocols. This is NOT pizza delivery!!

And, finally, in my view, Interflora's management needs to have a serious think about training and then empowering their staff to go the extra mile to put things right: and in their business, in the event of non-delivery, that means finding an alternative supplier and having a back-up plan.

Sadly, the impression I gained through my conversations was that this is no longer a top-tier organisation operating in an intensely sensitive market - it's just a call centre with a rather unreliable supply chain and even less reliable processes. As ever, though, the market will decide: let's hope that it's really tough on complaisance..