Teleflora www.teleflora.com Review

I placed an order on Friday April 16th for a delivery on Sunday April 18th for my sister's birthday. The website asked for the zip code for delivery before I placed the order and it presented me with a calendar of delivery dates with no black-outs. I selected Sunday April 18th and completed the order. At no point was I warned that Sunday was not a possible delivery date. I recieved and email confirming the order and the Sunday delivery. Again, I placed the order on a Friday.



After 1pm on Sunday, I received an email stating that the order could not be delivered. The message had an 800 number to call for more information. When I called the number, I got a message saying that no one could take my call because it was a holiday. Today is not a holiday (except in Zimbabwe where it is Independence day and Isreal where it is Rememberence Day, but again, not a holiday in the United States.) I can only guess that the recording was left over from Easter over 2 weeks ago.



I was forced to search the site and find another number to call which got me thru to a "representative" who barely spoke English and who was not helpful. I demanded to speak to a supervisor and was put on hold for over 15 minutes. When I was finally transferred to a "supervisor" he claimed his name was Leonard but his command of English was also wanting as was his attitude. We went back and forth with me giving suggestions on how to fix this situation and him saying he could not help. I repeatedly asked for his full name, his direct number, and the name of his supervisor--none of which he would give me.



In the meantime, my husband used our other line to find a florist who was still open in my sister's area and who is a member of Teleflora. I gave this information, including the name and number of the shop, to "Leonard" who pretended to call the shop. He came up with two conflicting stories--one that the shop would not accept the order and the other that the shop could not make the arrangement. I hung up from "Leonard" and called the shop back, to be told by the florist that she had not received any calls.



In desperation, I called the Teleflora number back and this time selected the option to "Place a new order". To my surprise, the phone was answered by a native English speaker in the U.S. named Brian who listened to my problem and transferred me to another English speaking supervisor. (I'm sorry but I have forgotten her name).



By this time, nearly 2 hours after we started, it was too late to do much of anything but this woman did call the shop that we had found open and tried to pursuade the florist to deliver the order herself. She was not successful, but back on the line with us, she offered to send the original order, a note of apology to my sister, and an additional bouquet to try to make up for the errors.



I am grateful for her help but none of this would have happened if Teleflora.com had prevented a Sunday delivery, given warning messages before the order was placed, called or sent an email on Friday or Saturday asking if the delivery could be a day early instead of not being notified until the day of that there was a problem, with the only resolution occurring after the occassion.



Teleflora has one job to do--deliver flowers to make people happy, both the sender and the recipient. Your tag line is "fresh flowers hand delivered daily". I came to your site after trying two other local florists in my sister's area and their little self-made sites told me they could not deliver on Sunday, so I went to the "big" name--Teleflora--and no such warnings came from a site created and maintained by the big guys.



My sister is still going to be disappointed today that it seems like I "forgot" it is her birthday. If I tell her the story today, it ruins any aspect of surprise tomorrow. I live over 2,000 miles away and cannot make this up to her even with the extra delivery tomorrow. It would be very easy for your site to be fixed so that dates that are not available are not selectable and if there is an issue, to immidately call the sender--not email two days later on the actual delivery date that there is an issue.



Your "customer service" should all be in the United States with native English speakers and those staff members should have access to local delivery companies and "emergency" resources to fix issues. I should be able to get English speakers if I use the phone system to follow-up on an order, not just if I am placing an order. (Heaven forbid you not get more business in, but screw the person who has a problem with their order is the message I got loud and clear from this experience.)



None of that is in place, and Teleflora should be ashamed. I am appreciative of the rep who helped me in the end but I will not be ordering from Teleflora again and I will make sure that this post is available in multiple places so that others can learn not to trust Teleflora for important special occassions.