Miraquel
The Florists Database
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Overview - Florists Database

What the database offers

Success comes from carrying out a number of small steps

A week with John* the Florist

1. John had learned that the key to getting repeat customers was timing - reminding past customers of the service his shop could provide was a key source of business.

2. With that in mind he sat down at the computer and as every day created a group using the database and sent out 10 reminders that day.

3. The database extracted the address details and names and merged them to a template letter John checked the paper tray and pressed print - within 2 minutes the ten letters were printed. John folded them in half and put them in the C5 window envelopes by the desk.

4. On average out of every 10 letters going out he got 2 to 3 orders plus it was a chance to keep the shop name in front of past customers.

5. That job out of the way there were was a corporate order for £35 John added the company to the database and picked the receipt template letter again within a couple of minutes he had recorded the company and sent them a VAT receipt - this was something else John had noticed - that corporate customers kept coming back as long as you sent a receipt for the flowers ordered.

6. Turning his attention to some new orders from yesterday he added the three new names which were not on the database. - Just adding 3 or 4 names a day had shown that within a year John had over 1,000 names on his mailing list.

7. The next day John attended a meeting of an organisation promoting flowers to businesses. There at the meeting everyone received 50 colour leaflets. Having been involved in buying print he know that they would have cost hundreds of pounds to produce and so he was grateful for this Free first class literature.

8. John created a group of corporate customers which took only a minute amended a letter which again only took 5 minutes and printed them off. With a £120 black laser printer John had found he could create 50 letters in under 5 minutes these went in to C5 envelopes and with the brochure - again another job completed quickly and with very little effort.

9. At the monthly meetings many of those who attended complained that it was too much effort to send out reminders and contact new customers but John knew that with a small investment in time that the challenge was easily overcome.

10. Whilst the florist shop did not have numerous assets it did have some and to that end John used the Asset Register feature to keep a track of things like software.

11. Being part of a member organisation John liked to play an active role and he also kept contact details on the database of those who he needed to communicate with - he sent an email to the local representative and then added that to the database as an activity so that he could keep a track of his request for information.

12. John relied on 5 suppliers and again relied on the database to keep a record of the contact details.

Application for a job

13. John logged the person and replied that they did not have any vacancies but he would keep them on file and get back to them if the opportunity arose

Special Events

Once you start to use a database there are other events which come to mind

Would not it be handy to write to people who had ordered at:-

Thankfully the database does allow for such recording of preferences and then the easy extraction of those names

John knew that out of the couple of thousand names he expected to build in his database that probably only a quarter would order around Valentines day. - If you stick to segmenting your database i.e. only mailing the people who are interested in in a particular product then it saves money and ensures a good portion of those mailed respond. This was one of the keys to success.

From time to time John demonstrated floristry skills and kept a special field for those who had expressed an interest or who had come along in the past. Again it made it so easy to organise such events.

* John is a fictional character and no reference to any person alive or otherwise should be inferred by the choice of the name John.

Keys to success

Everyone is looking for the magic formula in business.

Sadly this does not always describe the world of floristry, but by being proactive and investing a small amount of time in your business every day, keeping in touch with customers is not a dream but a practical reality.

And if you can keep in touch with your customers you will keep them telephoning fresh orders through or walking through your door and you will be a lot nearer utopia.

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Miraquel

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Hollywood
Birmingham
West Midlands
B47 5JP
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