A Scottsdale, Ariz., florists' online survey shows how important customer feedback on product can be.

Cactus Flower Florist in Scottsdale, holds a design competition between its six retail branches four times a year and features the winning floral designs in the store and on the Web site. Normally, an internal panel of judges chooses the winning designs — but this fall the retailer decided to do something different: let the customers choose their favorites.

"We thought it would ... help sales because we would be putting up product the customers have already shown interest in," says Tiffany Fellwood, director of online marketing.

The company sent out an online survey to customers via e-mail (which was open from Sept. 18-23). Survey participants were also entered to win one of the winning bouquets.

Little did the company know the customers' design preferences would be so different from its own internal survey.  The designs that scored high with the company employees were the least favorite among the customers, and vice-versa. "We were really shocked," Fellwood says.

Fellwood says the company has sold about 12 of the customer-favorite bouquets since they were made available on Sept. 26 — which represents a slight "boost" in "Cactus Flower Exclusives" sales. 

Survey response levels indicate that customers are happy to be asked for an opinion: More than 40 percent of recipients participated in the survey. A follow-up e-mail announcing the winners and runners-up of the competition, as well as the winner of the free bouquet, had a 75 percent open rate in 24 hours. Cactus Flower plans to continue surveying customers for future design competitions.

Read about another Arizona florist asking for customer feedback in the July 11 issue of E-Brief.

--Vanessa Machir
vmachir@safnow.org

 

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