Tips & Tricks: September 2006 Archives

Published by Mark Anderson, FloristWare on Friday, September 01, 2006 at 2:07 PM.
In case you haven't heard the new and improved SAF (Society of American Florists) website has just been unveiled and it is GREAT! If you are an SAF member you should try and check it out ASAP. A link appears below:

New SAF Website

If you are based in the US and are not an SAF member you really should think about joining. It is a great organization that works very, very hard on your behalf. Aside from all of the other benefits there are probably enough special member discounts for you to get your membership investment back there alone.

Earlier this week we spoke to a user who wanted to do some marketing. Specifically she wanted to send a newsletter to all of her customers so she used FloristWare to print mailing labels for all of her customers.

She knew that she had entered a lot of people into the system but she was surprised by how few address labels printed out. The reason for this is simple - when you are doing marketing FloristWare will only print out address labels for the people who have complete mailing addresses (including ZIP/Postal Codes) on file. If you don't have a complete address there is no point printing a label so the system doesn't bother.

She was a little disappointed that she had not collected more of this valuable information and was happy to learn that FloristWare features a special "Customer Tools" feature that allows her to go and collect the data she needs.

The "Customer Tools" are found in the Marketing section. Among other things they let you create a list of everyone who does not have a complete mailing address on file. You can then enter the information - you can call the customer to get it, or you can take it from a phonebook or internet.

It's another feature that helps you maximize your marketing efforts!

When talking to relatively new users I'm always sad to see that they generally aren't taking full advantage of the "Hot Spots" feature - usually because they don't know what it is or to use it.

A "Hot Spot" is any place that you deliver to frequently - places like Hospitals, Funeral Homes. large businesses, etc. FloristWare allows you to enter as many of these places as you like.

Then, when you are taking an order for delivery to one of these places, you don't have to enter the address over again - you simply select the HotSpot and FloristWare will fill the address in for you. This can really save you a lot of time and help reduce costly delivery errors.

It's one of those things that will save you time every single day, but it does take a little bit of time to get it set by entering all of the places you deliver to frequently. As a result users ten to put that important first step off, and therefore don't get the benefit of the feature.

Please try and set aside some time to enter your HotSpots - once you do you will find FloristWare even more helpful!