FloristWare has several powerful tools that can increase your sales in different ways.

The Reminders feature generates a lot of sales. Customers tell you their special dates, and FloristWare prompts you to call or email the customer as that date draws near to get their order.

The Sales Call feature does not appeal to everybody, but it might work for you. If you turn it on, FloristWare will prompt you to call or email customers that have not purchased in a while. You get to specify the minimum interval between calls so as not to avoid customers, and customers can be removed from the list at their request with a single click.

Sales Maximizer tools increase the size of your sales by giving your staff access to the customers spending patterns. It shows you the customers average, max and total purchases. If a customer routinely spends $100 and has spent as much as $200, you don't want to sell them a $30 arrangement. You want to keep them at $100 or more. The Sales Maximizer feature makes sure that you get the most out of every sale.

the optional Points Program is a points-based incentive program. Every time customers buy flowers, they earn points that can be redeemed for free or discounted product in the future. You choose whether or not you want to run a points program. If you do, you get to decide how many points are awarded and what they are worth.

The reciprocity tool is used when sending orders to other florists. It shows you how much business each florist in that area has sent to you compared to what you have sent to them. By rewarding the florists that are loyal to you, you can increase the number of orders they send you.

The ListBuilder tool help you create powerful marketing campaigns from the customer database that FloristWare creates and maintains. For example, ListBuilder can find all of the customers who have sent flowers on Thanksgiving. It can then print a mailing label for each of them so you can send a brochure with your Thanksgiving specials, or it can create a call list so your staff can phone those customers. It can even send a customized email to everyone on that list with just a click of a button.

Here is another example. You could find all of the people who routinely spend more than $100 and give them a special coupon. You could find the people who spend more than $500 in a year to invite them to an open house.

The AdTracker feature helps to generate sales in a different way. It shows you how effective each of your advertising efforts are so that you can spend your advertising budget more effectively. For instance it might show you that spending $100 a month for an ad in the local weekly generates more business that a $200 per month yellow pages ad. By spending more on the weekly and less on the yellow pages you can increase your sales and/or decrease your advertising costs.

FloristWare also improves your sales by giving you an edge in customer service that nobody can match. This will keep your customers loyal, make them want to come back and encourage them to tell their friends.

As you can see, FloristWare has all the tools you need to increase your sales in a number of different ways.

FloristWare keeps track of how well your employees perform and then presents this information to you in a way that allows you to use your people most effectively.

For example let's say you have one employee that consistently gets $8 more that the store average on each sale. Obviously this employee is very good at upselling and getting the most from your customers. This is somebody you want to make sure is right out front and dealing with customers - making sales and taking orders - all day long! You don't want somebody like that in the back washing pails.

If you have someone who is consistently making sales lower than the store average, or is frequently discounting product you may want to take them out of sales or give them some guidance.

You might also see that the work of a certain designer is being returned more often than you would like - maybe you need to talk about their preparation and packaging. If an employee's sales are being refunded more often than normal maybe they aren't giving the proper care instructions.

These may seem like little things but they are little things that can save you money and give you a real edge in customer service!

With just a few simple clicks FloristWare can generate thirty different reports! You just pick a report and tell FloristWare what period of time you want to cover.

Some of them are very straightforward - Sales by Day, Sales by Week, etc. Other are much more interesting, like the Suspect Activity report which alerts you to potential fraud and internal theft, or the AdTracker report that shows you where your business is coming from (Yellow Pages, wire services, word-of-mouth, etc.) and how effective each method is!

The Comparison reports are very popular. First you pick a Comparison report - say "Compare Sales By Day". You then select the first period of time - let's say the current month to date. You then pick the second period - let's say the same month last year. FloristWare then shows you your sales by day for the two periods side by side so you can see exactly how well you are performing. Try doing that with a cash register!

Not sure it's a useful feature? Imagine it's February 9th. You have a chance to pick up some last minute product. FloristWare lets you compare your sales from February 1 to 9 of this year with your sales from the same period last year. You'll know in an instant how things are shaping up!

FloristWare almost certainly generates all the reports you are used to, all the reports you have ever wished for and probably a few you never even thought of!

FloristWare helps you build customer loyalty in several different ways.

The optional Points Program is a neat feature that runs a points-based incentive program. Every time customers buy flowers, they earn points that can be redeemed for free or discounted product in the future.

You choose whether or not you want to run an optional points program. If you do, you get to decide how many points are awarded and what they are worth. You get to decide whether to allow partial redemptions (for discounts) or just full redemptions (free product).

Don't think it will work? There is a reason why these programs are so popular! They keep customers coming back.

Reminders are another feature that customers love. Customers can ask you to remind them about their special days, and FloristWare will prompt your staff to call or email the customer as the day draws closer. This is a valuable service, and customers come to depend on it.

The greatest way to ensure customer loyalty however is to provide unmatched customer service. Features like AutoFill and HotSpots allow you to take orders faster, something every customer appreciates. Notes reminds you what the customer like and doesn't like. Histories can show you everything the customer ever bought, who it went to and what it said on the card.

The optional points program gives your customers a financial incentive to stay loyal. Reminders make sure you contact them just as they start thinking about making purchases. Enhanced customer service makes you the florist that they want to deal with.

These are ways that FloristWare helps you keep your customers loyal!

FloristWare was originally designed as an order-taking system, and it has many features that save time for you and the customer while reducing errors and providing an exceptional level of customer service.

The first step is to enter the delivery date and city. The Date Checker feature automatically looks for conflicts so that you don't accidentally take an order that you can't deliver.

The next step is to get the customer's information. If this is a repeat customer, you need only to enter their name or phone number to get access to their order history, spending patterns and preferences through the Notes and Histories tools. This information will help you give this customer exactly what they want while saving you time.

The next step is the recipient information. If the recipient has received flowers before, you need only enter their name or phone number to see their entire order history and preferences through the Notes and Histories tools. All of their addresses will be on file — the AutoFill feature ensures that you never have to enter an address twice. If it is a new recipient, the HotSpots feature can be used to automatically enter the addresses of the places that you deliver to frequently & like hospitals, funeral homes, etc.

Next you select the product. The Histories feature shows you what this customer and recipient have sent/received in the past in case they really liked something and want it again. Notes hows you what they like.

Once you select the product, you can make changes to the price, delivery or service charges. The Budget Tool comes in handy if the customer has a certain amount in mind by showing you what you have to work with after taxes and charges are taken into account.

You can also make changes to the product description. Say the customer wants a mixed arrangement but hates gyp. You can note this and it will appear to your designer or the florist that you send the order to.

At this point you confirm the order. You can either take more orders or proceed to checkout.

If you like, the optional points program can automatically be awarded to keep the customer loyal. The Reminders can prompt your staff to ask the customer if they would like a remindercall prior to any special occassions. And AdTracker can prompt you to ask the customer how they heard about you so that you can monitor the effectiveness of your advertising.

Once you are done with the customer, FloristWare will print out the order/delivery slip for local orders. This has the information your designer needs to create the piece and your delivery service needs to get it delivered. FloristWare can also print Enclosure Cards / Delivery Slips.

If it is an outgoing wire, FloristWare makes assigning it quick and easy, and the reciprocity feature makes sure that you give it to a florist that also sends business to you.

Whenever you are especially busy you will appreciate the extra level of organization and control that FloristWare provides even more. Imagine being able to instantly find and review the details and status of every single order!

The ProgressTracker tool is especially handy for busy shops that choose to use it. You could have one or more people entering orders over the phone. A designer in the back is on another computer looking at the orders as they come in and checking them off as they are completed. Meanwhile the manager can be watching the progress and keeping an eye on things from yet another computer.

FloristWare also allows you to break your deliveries into separate "runs" and prints separate delivery lists for each. It can also print pick-up lists sorted by name or order number - very helpful if you try and keep of your outgoing pick-ups!

FloristWare includes a very powerful tool called AdTracker that will help you determine exactly how much you gain from various advertising efforts. This allows you to stop wasting money on advertising that doesn't work and concentrate your budget on advertising that does work.

When AdTracker is turned on, your staff is prompted to ask the customer how they heard about you at the end of each sale. They then make a selection from a pull-down menu that you define. AdTracker automatically flags some orders, such as incoming wire orders or sales that come from reminder calls so that your staff doesn't even have to ask.

AdTracker will then generate reports for any period that you specify. These reports break down where your business came from. And you don't just see total sales — you see the number of sales, the average sale value and more — everything you need to decide whether a particular method of advertising is working for you.

And AdTracker does still more. Let's say you run an AdTracker report for January. It will show you how much business was generated by word-of-mouth, Reminder Calls, Sales Calls, incoming wires, yellow pages, and whatever else you may have going.

You then enter the cost of that advertising, and AdTracker then calculates the cost of the business that it generated. So if you spend $100 per month on your Yellow Pages ad, and that ad generated $500 in sales, FloristWare will show you that for every dollar spent, you made $5 in sales. It also sorts the list from most effective to least effective.

AdTracker shows you whether or not you are spending your money in the right places. Do those Yellow Pages and Wire Service Directory ads really pay off? FloristWare will tell you once and for all.

FloristWare features a powerful reciprocity tool that helps you maximize the business that you get from other florists.

Whenever you need to send an order to another florist, the reciprocity tool shows you a list of the florists that service that area. It also shows you the number of orders and total value that you have sent to each vs. the number of sales and total value that they have sent to you.

This shows you who your friends are! Some florists choose to send all of their business to one shop in a particular area, hoping that they will do the same.

Other shops, especially newer ones, choose to spread their orders around in the hopes of building relationships. Whatever strategy you choose, FloristWare helps you make it happen.

FloristWare also lets you keep notes on the florists you like to deal with — who has good prices, who is easy to work with, who can deliver the quickest, etc.