Customer Service is Key for Local Florist

With spring in full swing, business is booming – or perhaps we should we say blooming – at Ms. .

The Cortez Rd flower florist that carved a place for itself amongst the businesses in Bradenton Patch’s 2012 Reader’s Choice Awards for Best Customer Service, is gearing up for its busiest holiday of the year: Mother’s Day.

“Mother’s Day is by far our largest holiday,” said owner Ryan Bringman. “Valentine’s Day is next, followed by Christmas and then Easter and Thanksgiving – but Mother’s Day is huge.”

Bringman said that he attributes the the high volume of Mother’s Day sales to the number of senior citizens whose children live up north and send them flowers ordered over the phone or internet.

“There are also more options on Valentine’s Day when you’re choosing a gift for your partner,” he said. “Mother’s Day is big because flowers are what most people think of when they’re getting a gift for Mom.”

In addition to traditional floral arrangements, Ms. Scarlett’s provides zen gardens and contemporary designs, as well as gourmet chocolate, fruit baskets and candles. The store prides itself on delivering service that matches or even exceeds customers’ expectations.

“The number one complaint people have with florists is that when they receive an arrangement, they feel like it doesn’t look the way it looked in the picture.” Bringman said. “Here we do everything we can to make sure our arrangements look just like the customer expected them to look. That’s what really sets us apart – that, and our quality control. We’re very finicky and we only use the best flowers.”

Bringman said the customer service philosophy at Ms. Scarlett’s is simple.

“The less time you have to talk to a customer about any issues they have, the better your customer service is,” he said. “We make it our goal to go above and beyond to satisfy our customers so that they don’t have any issues, period.”

Of course, a commitment to impeccable customer service occasionally lends to some bizarre orders.

“You’d be surprised how many orders we get for dead flowers, black roses and weird gift baskets filled with things like cat toys,” Bringman said. “But as long as the customer is happy, we’re happy.”

This commitment to customer service and quality, when combined with business savvy, has allowed Ms. Scarlett’s to thrive, even in the tumultuous economy over the past few years.

Bringman’s mother, Gayle Byers, opened the original Ms. Scarlett’s Flowers & Gifts in 1992 and ran the store until he took over in 2008.

When Bringman took over, he brought Ms. Scarlett’s up to date by moving a pen-and-paper system into the digital age and remodeling the store to give it a more chic and contemporary appearance. As a result, he said that business has increased by an average of 20 percent a year over the past 4 years.

“I can’t wait until the economy is back to doing really well,” Bringman said.

Bringman said that the biggest struggle as a small business in the floral industry is keeping customers happy when they order arrangements through international companies like 1-800 Flowers that act as the middle man between the customer and the florist.

Although most small floral businesses rely on referrals from companies like 1-800 Flowers to stay afloat, Bringman said that it can sometimes be a double-edged sword – especially in terms of customer satisfaction.

“We get a lot of orders that come through companies it’s unfortunate because if people ordered directly from us, we could do a much better job and it would actually be cheaper for the customer,” he said.

Bringman said that ordering from a 1-800 number often results in misspelled names and messages that get lost in translation as the order is passed down the line, and that the problem of floral arrangements not looking like the photo-cropped catalogue pictures is much more common when ordering from a big company rather than a local florist.

To avoid unnecessary processing fees, spelling mishaps and flower arrangements that disappoint when compared to the catalogue pictures, Bringman suggests that people always look up local florists in the phonebook or on the internet and order directly from them, rather than going through nation and worldwide companies.

“A florist is only as good as its worst designer,” said Bringman.

“At Ms. Scarlett’s, our motto is ‘Affordable, creative and fresh.’ Providing fresh products and great customer service at a good price is what sets us apart from the rest.”