It is the best time for florists to rake in the cash, but one Singapore-based startup managed to royally screw it up.
Valentine’s Day, the commercial love holiday where many order bouquets to publicly proclaim their undying love for their other halves. Flower sales triple and quadruple; It is the best time for florists to rake in the cash, but one Singapore-based startup managed to royally screw it up.
A Better Florist, a flower delivery service, was in a mad rush to keep up with the ever-so-high demand on February 14… and failed.
According to their website, you can pick a flower arrangement on their site, then choose a time and place for delivery, and add a quick note. The service will deliver them and even throw in a personal touch in the form of a handwritten card.
Customers claimed their girlfriends never received their orders, others said the flowers were delivered hours late, and many got bouquets that had missing, wilted flowers, or missing balloons.
You can bet the men who spent a hundred bucks and up were displeased that their wives or girlfriends never got their surprise. Many exclaimed that the florist had “screwed up Valentine’s Day”.
People tried to contact customer service but their calls, emails and Facebook messages went unanswered so they turned to Facebook comments and Instagram. A social media s**tstorm that aroused from it, with some calling it a “total sham” and asking people to boycott the startup.
Unhappy customers flooded their Facebook page with comment after comment of unhappiness at orders being undelivered and their complete radio silence (though there were a few lucky ones who did manage to get their orders)::
Some had deliveries so late that their wives had already knocked off work:
Those who got their bouquets got flowers that were crumpled or of subpar quality. Their personalised cards were hastily scrambled and items were missing.
One did not get her balloon and another had missing flowers. Customers were pissed that the flowers did not appear as advertised.
One guy who decided to collect the order himself due to the delivery delay came upon this utterly cluttered scene:
A Better Florist simply could not keep up with the overwhelming demand.
It also did not help that some Facebook threads with people’s complaints were deleted, adding more fuel to fire.
In a stroke of cruel irony, the startup’s CEO and founder Steve Feiner had spoken to Tech In Asia in 2015, saying that he started the company with a vision of providing a better service after a horrible experience he had ordering flowers for his then-girlfriend’s birthday.
He had detailed his experience with his ex-girlfriend:
“Two and a half years ago, it was her birthday, and I wanted to get her flowers. It was a floral disaster.
“The flowers arrived a day after her birthday, they died shortly after, she was not happy. It was scarring to say the least.”
Feiner initially joined Google in San Francisco to do e-commerce sales and business strategy. He took a sabbatical and learnt about the global flower market and in Southeast Asia, then decided to resign and start A Better Florist.
Thus, his company was born with a hope to provide better floral delivery service and “Smiles guaranteed.”
After the social media fire that erupted and smiles that did not happen, Feiner explained in a blog post dated February 15 that their orders had multiplied by ten since last year’s Valentine’s Day.
This was even though they had stopped receiving orders two days before the occasion.
He said:
“Last year we received 200 orders and were able to fulfil them all without incident.
“This year, we received over 2,000 orders and our capacity to fulfil was outstripped.”
According to Tech In Asia, to try and satisfy as many orders as possible, Steve dedicated all resources to delivery, which left no time for customer service and communication. He thought this meant he could get more orders out, but it also made more people angry that they were being ignored.
He wrote the post on A Better Florist, asking for everyone’s forgiveness for the awful service. He also stated that all those who were affected will be getting a refund as soon as possible.
He said that the team, made up of a group of 20-somethings, went all weekend spending sleepness nights and working till their fingers were numb. They had worked a total of 116 hours, but they still did not make it.
He added, “We called in friends, family, and strangers to volunteer to clear this workload. We spilled out of the office into the streets and worked non-stop.”
However, there was a little V-day love in what he called the “worst crisis in our company’s history”. He thanked volunteers and passers-by for their help, saying it was “an absolute testament to heartwarming kindness of the people we live amongst”.
