FloristWare Newsletters: January 2006

Introducing FloristWare 1.7
New Release Makes FloristWare Even Better

Special Offer From FloralSource Inc.
FloralSource Inc. Offers FloristWare Users Free Trial

Valentines Day: Get The Most From FloristWare
How To Get Full Benefit From FloristWare This Valentines

Christmas 2005 Wrap-Up
Users Find FloristWare Paying Off Already

Tips & Tricks
Using Customer Histories To Maximize Sales

You can also download this newsletter in pdf format.

Welcome to our second newsletter. It is designed to help our users get maximum benefit from the FloristWare Order-Taking and Point-Of-Sale system and keep them informed of important FloristWare developments.

I hope that you all had a profitable holiday season at your stores and enjoyed some time off with friends and family.

With Christmas behind you and Valentines, Easter and Mother’s Day fast approaching this is a very exciting time to be a florist.

If you don’t yet have FloristWare in place, this is the time to make the switch. If are already a FloristWare user now is the time to make sure you are set up to receive the greatest possible benefits in the coming months.

With that in mind this issue will focus on helping our users get the most out of FloristWare this Valentines day. We’ll talk about everything from generating pre-orders & increasing sales to organizing pick-ups & deliveries and, perhaps most importantly, building a database of customer information.

We’re also going to discuss the strategies some of our users tried for Christmas. There are some valuable lessons that can be applied to any holiday.

And since we just released FloristWare 1.7 we’ll take a quick look at the new features and what they offer.

If you are already a FloristWare user I hope you will take a good look at the information in this issue. It will help you have a more profitable and organized Valentines day.

If you have not yet made the switch to FloristWare you need to know that there is no better time to do it than right now! If you get in touch with us right away we can have you all set up well before Valentines.

Mark Anderson
FloristWare Developer

If we get started right now you can have FloristWare in place and thoroughly tested well before Valentines.

What does this mean to you? First of all you will have your most organized Valentines Day ever.

Secondly, you will be capturing valuable customer information during the busiest time of the year. This information will become the basis of a marketing campaign that will keep generating sales all year long.

There is no better time to make the switch than right now. Please call us to get started!

New Release Makes FloristWare Even More Powerful

On December 20th FloristWare 1.7 was made available for download from our website. It features several new features and enhancements that make it even more powerful. A partial list of new features and enhancements appears below.

If you have been using a demo or trial you downloaded before December 20th we strongly encourage you to try the new version. If you are a paid FloristWare user you should already have been helped through the update.

Send Receipts By Fax Or E-Mail
You now have the option of printing each receipt OR e-mailing or faxing it directly to the customer. This is very helpful with phone orders! It also works with duplicate receipts - if a customer calls and asks you for a copy you can send it to them by fax or e-mail in seconds.

Send Orders By Fax Or E-Mail
You can now send orders directly to other florists by fax or e-mail.

Delivery Zones
You can now subdivide your local areas into smaller delivery zones (“MyCity (Downtown)”, “MyCity (North)”, etc.) and/or categories (“MyCity (Express)”, “MyCity (Courier)”, etc.), each with their own delivery charge.

FloralSource Inc. Compatibility
FloristWare now allows you to send orders directly into the FloralSource Network with just one click. You can literally send your orders in a matter of seconds.

Points Bonus For New Customers
This is a great new feature with lots of marketing potential. If you are running a points program, FloristWare now allows you to specify that new customers (or customers being entered into the system for the first time) be awarded special New Customer Bonus Points. This is a great incentive for customers to provide the information you want most and will help you build an even bigger customer database. Please visit the Discussion Groups area of the website where we are discussing how to make the most of this new feature.

Add / Deduct Points
In addition to awarding points when customers make purchases, you can now add or deduct points from their account at any time. This allows for some really interesting marketing possibilities. Please visit the Discussion Groups area of the website where we are discussing how to make the most of this new feature.

Balance Payment Methods
The Payments section of the Daily Sales Report now gives you a convenient method of correcting payments that were recorded incorrectly. This makes balancing easier than ever.

Charge Account Default
FloristWare now keeps track of a default charge account for each customer so you don’t have to select it each time. You can still have one customer charge to several different accounts, and you can still have multiple customers with separate order histories charging to the same account, but you no longer have to select the account for the majority of customers that charge to the same account each time.

New Accounts Receivables Reports
The Accounts Receivable section features two new reports that we added at the suggestion of one of our users. They are very helpful in many situations.

Better Back-Ups
FloristWare has always made the important task of backing-up your important data very easy. This new feature makes organizing your back-ups just as easy.

Better Time Format Consistency In Reports
Reports that include times are now more consistent in the way that they format it, making the reports easier to read, understand and compare.

FloralSource Inc. is offering a special deal to FloristWare users. If you are not already a FloralSource member they will let you use their service free for three months.

FloralSource Inc. is already the choice of thousands of florists across North America. Given the excellent compatibility between FloristWare and FloralSource it is an option you should explore. Please call for details.

We are a little over a month away from Valentines Day - probably one of your busiest times of the year. This article will show you how to use FloristWare during this period to increase sales and pre-orders while decreasing headaches and building your customer database.

Before Valentines

In the weeks leading up to Valentines Day we want to use FloristWare to do the following:

1. Market To Existing Customers
We want to use the marketing features in FloristWare to make sure that your existing customers order from you and not another florist, online retailer or grocery store.

2. Generate Pre-Orders
We also want to encourage your customers to order well in advance. This will allow you to purchase more accurately.

There are a few commonly used incentives. Some stores offer discounts on Valentines pre-orders. This is a good solution, but we suggest offering bonus points. Instead of discounting your prices you offer double or triple points on orders placed before a deadline you specify.

There are several advantages. The first is that you are still charging your full price. The discount you are offering (in the form of the bonus points) is not only deferred long into the future, it will also be a much smaller discount - especially when you consider many if not most customers will never actually get around to redeeming their points.

There is another great benefit to offering bonus points - it gives the customer a reason to share valuable marketing information. In order to take part in the points program, a customer has to give you their name, phone number, etc.

It’s easy to set up bonus points. You simple go in to your settings and increase the rate at which points are awarded. When you reach whatever deadline you set, you simple turn the rate back to normal.

You will of course have to promote this to your customers so all of your receipts and invoices as well as your marketing material should mention that you are offering bonus points on all sales between, say, January 10 and February 10. Not only will this increase your pre-sales, it should also increase your regular sales during the slow January period.

3. Build Your Database
We keep talking about how FloristWare can help you market to your existing database of customers. The bigger that database is, the more FloristWare can offer. You want the biggest possible customer database!

Valentines is a great opportunity to build that database. You are going to have a huge number of people placing orders and you need to take advantage of that.

It can be hard. When your shop is busy it’s tempting to skip over things like customer e-mail addresses, mailing addresses and reminders, but you need to avoid that temptation whenever possible.

Try to collect as much customer information as possible during the busiest time of the year! Remember - were going to use this information to increase sales all year long.

During Valentines

1. Organize your Deliveries and Pick-Ups
This will make your life easier on the craziest day(s) of the year! In the reporting section you can generate Delivery Lists, divide the deliveries into separate runs and sort them however you see fit. You then print these out and give them to your drivers to help them stay organized.

You should also generate Pick-Up lists, sort by the last name of the customer and print. Then, as customers come in to pick-up their product it is relatively easy to find their name in the list, see the order number and find their items. You can then stroke their name off of the list.

2. Continue to Collect Customer Information
Even though you will be tempted to skip the customer information sections you really shouldn’t - you want to collect as much information as possible. This is probably your busiest time - if you work hard you can build a database that will form the basis of your marketing efforts for the next year.

Good luck!

Users Find FloristWare Paying Off Already

In early December we called our users and asked if they were using the FloristWare marketing features to maximize Christmas sales.

Some had but many hadn’t. We found this disappointing since almost all of our users have stressed that they want to use FloristWare to help them be more aggressive in their marketing. So, we came up with a quick and dirty but very effective plan for the holdouts.

The first step was to use the marketing tools to generate a list of customers. Each store had their own criteria for creating that list but FloristWare made it easy for all of them.

The next step was to contact all of the customers on that list in one or more of the ways supported by FloristWare:

E-Mail • Mailing Labels • Phone Calls

Time was tight so we tried to turn that to our advantage. We would stress what a great last-minute gift flowers make. The florists would remind their customers that when time was tight they could care of pretty much anyone on their list, anywhere in the world, with just one quick phone call.

Most users started out by e-mailing all of their customers with a short message to that effect. In more than one instance this was done while we were on the phone with them - the florist created the list, wrote the message and sent customized e-mails to each customer in just a few minutes. FloristWare made it that easy!

Many florists then chose to send a flyer, letter, or card. This allowed them to reach the customers that did not have an e-mail address on file, and to reaffirm their presence to the customers that had received the e-mail. Using the list we had already created FloristWare printed mailing labels in a matter of minutes.

The final step was to make phone calls. Using the same list, FloristWare printed what we refer to as a “Call List” - a list of customers with their phone numbers. This was kept beside the cash register and whenever employees had a few spare minutes they were encouraged to call customers and remind them that that one last trip to the mall could be avoided! In some cases this worked so well that the florists made sure they had an extra person on hand - just to make those calls!

If you are a FloristWare user (or planning to become one) please keep this in mind for next year. In fact, we’ll probably remind you about it in early November.

If you are just thinking about FloristWare this is a great example of how much it can help you. Could you do the things we described without FloristWare? Probably, but what we did in minutes would probably take you hours. In all likelihood that means that it wouldn’t get done at all.

Using Customer Histories To Maximize Sales

When dealing with a repeat customer you’ll notice that you see a “Customer Summary” early in the sale process. This is there to help you increase the sale value.

One of the first things you should look at is the “Notes”. If they say a customer is always in a hurry, you should take their order as quickly as possible. If they love golf, you might want to ask how they are playing. You are trying make them feel comfortable so they will be prepared to spend, and provide a good experience so they will come back.

Next you want to look at “Average Order”. This shows how much the customer spends on average. You never want to suggest they spend anything less. If it’s a phone order and their average order is $150, tell them you can do something absolutely beautiful for $150 - that way of they balk you can still do something very nice for less.

It works on cash & carry sales too. If a customer who normally spends $100 comes to the cash register with a $30 arrangement you should say something like “did you see our.....” and then show them your more expensive pieces.

“Largest Purchase” serves as a loose target. It is the maximum the customer has ever spent on a single sale, and you would always like to get back to (or above) that figure.