DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY

Item: NetFlorist
Rating: 1
Author: Nicole B

I have used NetFlorist in the past and have always been very impressed with their efficiency and good customer service. This time round, however, I was so disappointed on so many levels that I will NEVER use them again. While I am usually quick to forgive a mistake - we ALL have bad days - what I cannot handle is when a company throws up its hands and says "sorry, but you'll have to deal with it".   I live in JHB and so use NetFlorist for the odd special occasion to send flowers or whatever else to friends and family in Cape Town. This Mother's Day, my husband and I decided to spoil our moms by ordering personalised bottles of wine by the due date to qualify for the free box of Lindt chocolates to go with it. Once I had placed the order, I was informed that unfortunately these deliveries (I'm assuming because they were alcoholic beverages) did not qualify for delivery on the weekend, only on the Friday (6 May). I thought that that was fair enough and continued to confirm the order.   When Friday came around, my mom informed me that my father had to go to hospital for a procedure and that she would be working from home for the day. Because I had asked Netflorist to deliver to my mom's business address, I promptly phoned them to ask if they could change the delivery address. Their response was that unfortunately I could not make any changes at this stage, but that should my mother not be at work, NO-ONE ELSE WOULD BE ALLOWED TO SIGN ON HER BEHALF UNLESS I HAD GIVEN THAT INSTRUCTION EXPLICITLY, and that when they arrived there and found she was not there, they would phone her/me and arrange an alternative drop-off. He also informed me that the chocolates would be included in the delivery, despite not showing on the invoice. However, at 15:20 that afternoon I received an sms from Netflorist saying that the package had been delivered to my mom's work address and that RECEPTION had signed for them. I phoned them immediately to ask what was going on, and, an hour later after they had tracked my phone-call to apparently listen to the conversation I had had in the morning, asked if they could go pick it up and deliver it to my mom's office the next day (being a Saturday). I said my mother's company was only open Monday to Friday and that no-one would be there to receive the parcel. Too bad, was the response. So sorry that your mom won't be getting her parcel on Mother's Day. Apologies. When my mom eventually received her package today, guess what? No chocolates, no ribbon as ordered. Just the bottle (with word left out of the message) and a balloon (not ordered). I called Netflorist telling them what had transpired and that I would like a refund for this badly handled order and they said no. Or, if I wanted a refund, they would need to go and collect all the items they had delivered. I contested this and they said the best they could do was offer a R100 voucher (given that delivery for Netflorist is R69,95, this hardly compensatory). I understand that companies have policies and procedures and, due to my mom's item being personalised, Netflorist could certainly not re-use it. However, one does not just pay for an ITEM with Netflorist, one pays a premium for the SERVICE that they provide - and my money was, in essence, wasted. I could have placed an order for flowers with Woolies, paid a lower delivery fee and been 100% sure they would have delivered on the allocated day. And you know what? I think that is what I will do in the future. No reason to spend more money on a specialised service when you don't actually GET the service. All that Netflorist would have needed to do have retained me as a client would have been to acknowledge that they messed it up and to have offered to refund this order of mine SINCE IT WAS THEIR FAULT. Or to have issued me voucher/credit to the same value as what I had placed. Or to deliver a small posy to my mother to make up for not getting a present on Mother's Day, due to their negligence. But they were not interested. And, like I said to the call centre agent, then neither am I.

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