1-800-Flowers - Never Again!

Here is the letter I sent to AAA about my experience with this discount partner!  Save yourself the drama, pain and embarressment and choose a different florist!

I just wanted to send you a note to let you know of a recent experience I had with one of you Discount partners.  As a AAA member I try to take advantage of the discounts available to me and try to use companies that offer AAA discounts as often as possible.  Earlier this month I decided to send flowers to a good friend that lives in CT for her 40^th birthday.  She had invited me up to celebrate with her but I couldn’t make it and so I still wanted to do something very special for her.  Several weeks before her birthday I went online with 1-800-flowers and picked out the perfect arrangement and placed my order.  On my friend’s birthday I received an email that confirmed the delivery of the arrangement.  However, after several hours had passed and I hadn’t heard from her, I became concerned.  I contacted another friend that was at her house and confirmed that nothing had been delivered.   Her husband mentioned that there is another street in town with a very similar name and it had probably ended up there.  I called 1-800-flowers immediately about this and had to wait on hold for over 30 minutes to speak with a customer service representative.  I was then informed that there was nothing she could do for me at this time because it was after hours and there was no way they could contact anyone at the delivering florist.  I was directed to call back the next day during regular business hours and I got even more upset and explained to her that I had already had to wait 30 minutes to speak with her and that it shouldn’t be my responsibility to call back the next day.  She then put me on hold and disconnected the call.  I immediately called back and began waiting on hold again and while I was waiting I posted a scathing review on Twitter that was immediately responded to by one of their other customer service reps.  I was again told there wasn’t anything they could do at this time because the actual florists was closed but they would try to fix this but never really offered any kind of help.  After another 30 minutes I got through to another customer service rep who was much nicer and was actually trying her best to help me.  She kept apologizing and offered to have the flowers re delivered to my friend at the cabin that everyone was going to in VT for her birthday celebration.  I just needed to get the address and call them back in the morning.  The next morning I called back with the address of the cabin and was told they were sorry again, but they couldn’t deliver the flowers to this address at all.  My only option at this point is to have them try to re deliver the flowers on Monday (4 days after her birthday) and they would send me a coupon for $20 off my next order.  On Monday afternoon I hadn’t heard from anyone about the delivery and I again called 1-800-flowers to check on it.  After being put on hold for over 10 minutes the customer service representative came back on the line.  She proceeded to tell me that they had been experiencing computer issues all that day and my flowers were again NOT delivered!   They would however promise to deliver them the next day on Tuesday.   At this point I completely lost my mind and demanded that my order be completely refunded.  I explained how deplorable this service was and that delivering 5 days after her birthday was completely unacceptable!  I am so completely disgusted with this company and their customer service practices.  At no time during any of my conversations about the problem did they offer to do anything but say I’m sorry and send me coupons.  I can assure you that I will never do business with this company again.  I also plan to let everyone I’m connected with via social media know all about my experiences to save them the complete disappointment from this horrific company.  I thought you all should know about this as it reflects poorly on your company also for supporting them.  I’ve usually had great experiences with my AAA discount partners but I will be much warier in the future because of this experience. 

Regards,

Cheryl Patterson