Unexpected Results

Last Thursday was Valentine’s Day, and while I had bought a gift for my girlfriend, I think it is obligatory to also get flowers. I heard about proflowers.com on the Glenn Beck radio show, and figured I would give them a shot.

Being a guy, I didn’t do this until Tuesday the 12th, but all the promotional stuff I heard/saw on their site said it was not problem. I decided on a plant, the Azalea Bonzai to be precise. She just started a new job a couple months ago, and I thought this might go good at her desk. During the checkout, I had the option for next-day delivery (the 13th) for a fairly good bump-up in the shipping, or two options for 2nd day (the 14th). I could pay something like $19.99 and have it there by 9am on the 14th, or $9.99 and it would be there by 5pm, though they noted most deliveries arrived by 2pm. I figured she worked till 5, so that would work fine. I received my email confirmation of the order just fine, detailing the what, where it was going and included the following info on the shipping charges;

This was just before 2pm on Tuesday. At just after 10pm I get an email “Your Proflowers order has been picked up for Shipping” and said…

Dear Robert Portinga -
A shipment from order XXXXXXXXXX of Valentine’s Day Azalea Bonsai has been picked up by FedEx and is scheduled to be delivered to XXXXXXX XXXXXX on 2/14/2008.

And gave me a FedEx link for tracking if I wanted. Note the part that says “on 2/14/2008″ and imagine my surprise when I heard from my girlfriend on Wednesday, 2/13/2008 thanking me for the flowers.

I was glad she received them, and liked them and all that, but yea… I was a bit disappointed they didn’t get there on Thursday like they were supposed to. When I got home, I even had an email from Proflowers, generated automatically via the FedEx tracking I suppose, confirming they had been delivered on 2/13/2008. About 10pm that night I decided to write the following email to comments@proflowers.com

Sent: Feb 13, 2008 10:22:07 PM
Subject: Valentines Delivery … too early?

Greetings,
I ordered your Valentine’s Day Azalea Bonsai with the following
details…
Order Number: XXXXXXXXXX
Delivery Date: 2/14/2008

I was a bit surprised to get a note from my girlfriend earlier today, 2/13/2008, thanking me for the flowers.

Now, it seems a bit odd to be complaining that something I ordered arrived early… but when ordering for Valentine’s Day… and having been given the option to pay extra for morning delivery vs before 5pm delivery… on the 14th… and seeing a “Guaranteed Feb. 14 Delivery” charge of $9.99, I pretty much figured she would receive the gift on Valentine’s Day.

I thought I read everything carefully, but I did not see any mention that the flowers would be delivered “on or before Feb. 14″.

Obviously, nothing can be done to fix this… I don’t know what happened, or why…. but I wanted someone to be aware of what happened here, because sometimes getting something early is not a good thing.

Rob Portinga

Here’s the response I received just over two hours later;

Dear Rob,

Thank you for contacting Proflowers. Please accept our sincere apologies for the early delivery. We have applied a refund of $24.98 to your account for the early delivery. This credit will interface with your credit card company in approximately 5-7 business days.

As your satisfaction is extremely important to us, we are more than happy to issue this refund. Again, please accept our apologies for any disappointment with this order. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Best Regards,

HB Crystal Nguyen
Customer Care
ProFlowers
The Art of Fresher Flowers

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting anything more than maybe a discount on my next order as a gesture to placate me. I mean… I did get what I ordered, I just received it earlier than I’d planned…next day shipping without paying for it. I thought if they were “really good”, they might credit me the $9.99 extra shipping charge. I never expected this full refund of the shipping, and given how busy I’m sure they were for Valentine’s Day, I sure didn’t expect to hear back that quickly.

So… I don’t buy flowers that often, and when I do I typically hit one of a couple local places. However, if I need/want to order something online again, I will definitely be using Proflowers.com again. I believe it is not (just) about the mistakes that are made, it is how they are dealt with, and they went above and beyond in dealing with this one.