With all the deceptive order gathering and showcasing flowers at prices too good to be true, over-pricing and under-delivering, you need your sales team trained and ready more than ever before. This is the exact reason I want my customers ordering from our floralapp; they can’t get stolen from us there and are limited to only our shop.
So here is what just happened…
A customer (for over 5 years) calls Beneva to cancel an order for this Friday. She was short and I could hear in her voice she was just looking to cancel and hang up. After seeing she ordered a $40.00 bouquet, I introduced myself and
that broke the ice. She then said she goes to my church and sees me at mass every Sunday, loves our flowers at church and STILL is cancelling this order.
I politely asked her if she would share with me why she wanted to cancel her order. It is important you handle this question delicately because people don’t like confrontation. She said she found something online for A LOT LESS. I am thinking a lot less than $40.00? I then asked if she could share more as I would be surprised if she truly found anything that much less (you know what I was thinking and, guess what, RIGHT on the money). Before I found out where she ordered, I warned her of flowers in a box to which she said, “OH NO, I would never do that.” Now she tells me more…
She told me she saw a pop-up on her computer for tulips. 20 tulips in a vase AND a box of chocolates for just $29.95 from Pro Flowers. The first indicator to know it is being shipped is they can’t select same day. Since most orders are for this weekend, how would they know? Pro Flowers hides these details, see the receipt to the left.
These guys are everywhere, retail florists need to engage customers more than ever before. Don’t look for someone else to do this work for us, we need work harder at securing our own customers than getting new ones.
Think about this woman and how many of you have relationships in town, at church, regular customers….They don’t leave because they don’t like you, they get lured into the trap.
I hope I opened at least one eye here. Don’t convince yourself, secure every customer and start by getting your staff trained today. You still have time!
Good luck, we all have our work cut out for us.
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