Day 69: Bloomex - their customer service sucks

Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

Day 69: Bloomex - their customer service sucks

This has been a highly frustrating day. It started this morning. Or actually, it started over the weekend.

Dieter and I were invited to lunch by a friend (let’s call her Amanda) who recently moved from a townhouse to an apartment.

While I was looking forward to see Amanda again, I was also rather excited meeting the five kittens she fosters.

So intent on meeting the kittens was I that I completely forgot to take along a housewarming gift for our hostess.

After our visit, which was both nice and sad (I didn’t get to take any of the kittens with me) I decided to rectify my mistake and send Amanda a bouquet of flowers. To do this I contacted Bloomex and this is where the trouble started.

I sent the flowers on Monday and when I hadn’t heard from Amanda on Tuesday, I send her a follow-up email. I thought it rather strange that if she received the flowers, she wouldn’t let me know. I found Amanda’s reply this morning stating that she hadn’t received the flowers.

This was rather upsetting. For one, the cat was out of the bag and the flowers would no longer be a surprise, and two ... if Amanda hadn’t received the flowers, where were they? I had received this email from Bloomex

Your Order has been Delivered

I contacted Bloomex on my phone and started a chat with customer service specialist Paul. After the initial complaint, Paul stated “Hold on while I investigate”. I waited and waited and Paul never got back to me.

Next, I moved to my computer and started another conversation, this time with Kelly. Kelly stated that the delivery guy had tried to deliver the flowers but couldn’t find the address.

And this is where I’m partly to blame. I had mentioned the address as 120 Kling Street (not Amanda’s real address). This was my mistake as it should have been 120 King Street. Now, this is where I’m starting to wonder about the intelligence of the courier person.

Courier people know Toronto like the back of their hand and know very well that there’s no such thing as Kling Street. When in doubt, they look at the postal code which pinpoints them to the exact location.

Apparently, this courier person didn’t have much intellect as he couldn’t find the address. Which begs the question ... why didn’t anyone contact me? At the order form, I had given my phone number and email address, yet nobody contacted. Instead, I received an email stating that a delivery had been made.

A string of emails followed. First, they were apologetic and I was now I VIP client and I didn’t need to worry, the flowers would be delivered today.

Next, I was no longer a VIP client and I had to pay an extra $8 for delivery changes, as it was my fault that the flowers couldn’t be delivered.

It is now Wednesday evening and Amanda still doesn’t have her flowers.

While Bloomex might have a wide selection of flowers at reasonable prices, their customer service sucks! If Bloomex wants to improve their reputation, they should change courier companies and make use of people who actually know Toronto.

What’s more, Bloomex blew a major contract. This order for Amanda was just a trial run. If this order had gone smoothly I would have recommended them to the head office of a string of funeral parlors, people who order hundreds of bouquets a month.

Sorry Bloomex, no such contract for you.