1-800-Flowers.com Inc-(FLWS) Message Board

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : 1-800-Flowers.com Inc-(FLWS)

FLWS 4.310

-6.8%

3:59 PM EST

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next

To: Stocks_ who wrote (114)	12/28/1999 8:42:00 PM
From: Rupert	Read Replies (2) of 125

I just feel that it is way too early to invest in these individual e-commerce stocks. I find great variation in the user experience, customer service and reliability when I use these services, and I think that eventually they will shake out and someone like Amazon.com that has an excellent user interface and customer service system will simply own them all. I use this company to place flower orders by telephone. 1800flowers is great when everything works. Not so good when there's a problem. Some quirks: - When I log in to the 1800flowers.com website it doesn't know anything the business I've placed by phone, so for example my address book is empty. Despite having spent $$$$ with them using the telephone the website doesn't know who you are. So one of the major benefits of e-commerce - a personalized customer experience that reflects their level of use - is lost. - You can't automatically check the status of orders that you've placed on the telephone by visiting the website. When I access my account on their website it knows nothing about orders I've placed by phone. You can check status by manually typing in the confirmation numbers while engaging in a chat session with a customer service rep. When I tried it I was told the system was down. - When you place an international order on the phone the confirmation e-mail you receive back doesn't include the destination country name in the address...so you are left wondering whether that's a mistake or not, and you end up having to call them back to check...which was presumably what they were trying to avoid by sending the confirmation. - I'm still waiting for a $70 international order (to the UK) that I placed on December 17th to be delivered. I've called them and they told me they'd get back to me within 24 hours and they didn't. I called back and was told that their UK office is closed for 2 days and there's no way to find out what the status is. I was also told that "because the communication goes via computer" it takes them 24 hours to get any status on undelivered international orders. Sounds like someone needs some system integration and decent back-end software. I asked them why someone there couldn't just call up the florist in the UK and ask what the status was and tell 'em to get on with it. International customer service said that a) the UK office was closed so they couldn't find out the florist's name and b) they aren't allowed to make international calls. Not sure why they couldn't make a 90 cent phone call to solve a problem. Worse still, they've never responded to any of my e-mail enquires I've made about the same order. Compare this with Amazon who answer customer relation e-mails within 8 hours. Makes you realize that the whole e-commerce/e-business thing is at a very early stage of development. There's obviously a lot more they could be doing to tie their systems together to make what should be a fairly simple customer transaction more hassle free. I was offered a gift certificate of 20% of the value of the order because it was late, but the $14 didn't seem worth it so I declined.

Report TOU Violation

Share This Post

Public Reply Prvt Reply Mark as Last Read File

Previous 10 Next 10 Previous Next