Don't Get Suckered by Unnecessary Floral Services

Countless businesses advertise flowers on television, on the radio, in the papers and on the Internet. It's easy to get suckered in by numerous flower marketing go-betweens.

Aggressive branding has resulted in almost universal recognition of the floral go-between giants - Teleflora, 1800Flowers, FTD, ProFlowers, and Flowers Across America. But did you know that these companies do not make the floral arrangements you send to your loved ones? They are simply go-betweens for you and a florist in the city you are sending flowers to.

I worked as a florist for close to eighteen years so I got to see how a number of these services work from the florist's perspective. These well known flower businesses are actually marketing businesses that get a substantial piece of your money without actually adding to your customer service or product quality. In fact, they may be reducing the quality of the flower arrangements you get for your dollar as well as the quantity.

The way florist go-between services or wire services work is they provide a service to customers and florists which bring them together. Before Internet use was widespread, this was a valuable service. Now that customers can easily access most florists directly through the Internet the service provided by floral go-betweens is pretty much useless and still costs just as much.

Teleflora, FTD, 1800Flowers, ProFlowers, Flowers Across America and other such services serve to network flower shops and direct orders from customers to a florist in the city where the person receiving the floral gift lives. The customer uses the go-between services by going to a florist shop or their website or calling a flower shop, going direct to the go-between's website, or calling the go-between on the telephone. Once the customer puts in his flower order it can work several different ways. If the customer dealt with a florist in his own city either in person, on the phone or via the Internet the florist will then choose a florist in the recipient's city to create her flowers and to deliver the flowers to her. To do this the florist either consults a directory provided by the floral go-between or uses a computer program provided by the wire service to automatically select a florist in the recipient's city and transmits the order to that florist either via the Internet or with a telephone.

If the customer deals directly with a go-between service on the phone or on the Internet an operator at the service will send the order using a method similar to that used by a florist. The downside to dealing directly with a go-between or wire service is that most of their operators are not familiar with flowers, they are just people trained as phone operators. They can only suggest flowers to you based on what they get incentives to sell.

Both scenarios - dealing with the wire service directly and dealing with the wire service through a florist - can lead to misunderstandings. In neither case does the customer communicate directly with the flower shop that will design and deliver the flowers they are buying.

The sneaky thing about floral go-betweens or wire services is that they do something you can easily do yourself with less possibility for misunderstandings. While they are doing it, they are charging the florist a monthly subscription fee to use them and a fee per use while the majority of long distance calls are paid for by the florist and the majority of the customer service personnel is provided by the florist. This causes the florist to increase their prices to cover these fees and expenses. The wire services also nick a percentage of each sale so by the time the florist who will actually execute the order sees it; some of the customer's money is already gone. The wire service go-betweens are getting money from customers and from florists while essentially providing nothing.

If you call a florist in the city where you are sending flowers directly or order from the florist's website directly you will save all of those fees, both to you and to the florist. You can also get instant information as to what actually is and is not available as far as flowers are concerned in that city and what flowers are looking their best. You can find florists in most cities by the use of Internet search engines or by calling information.

The wire services provide a degree of buyer protection but the method of getting a customer complaint resolved is far more convoluted than either directly contacting the florist you aren't happy with or your credit card company.

So save your money and build a relationship with florists in the cities where your loved ones live instead of falling prey to the floral go-between giants and you'll save money and get far better customer service.

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More relevant articles by this author:

The Ugly Side of Valentine's Day and Why You Should Skip the Red Roses

Why Do Florists Charge to Arrange Flowers?

Fresh Flower Care for Floral Arrangements and Cut Flowers