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.
