Jeff Sheely of UrbanStems on doing the most for your customers
Q: UrbanStems shook up a flower delivery industry that didn’t seem to be evolving. What opportunity did you see in the marketplace when you came up with the idea for your business?
A: It was personal experience that inspired us to start looking into the flower delivery industry. After one too many frustrating and disappointing deliveries, we realized that this industry hasn’t fundamentally evolved in decades and is full of inefficiencies, leading to 5 main issues with the traditional way of doing things:
1. Quality: with most orders going through online aggregators that outsource their fulfillment, your flowers travel through a disjointed supply chain full of middlemen and long stops in warehouses, leading to massive gaps in service and quality.
2. High Costs/Spoilage: not only do florists have to run a brick-and-mortar business, they also have an average spoilage rate of up to 50% - all costs which they have to bake into their pricing.
3. Accountability/Reliability: the big flower companies outsource fulfillment and often ship through third party carriers, which can take days. And not only that, the delivery windows aren’t clear, so you never know when your bouquet is going to show up or even what it’s going to look like.
4. Pricing: most flower companies advertise low prices and then tack on fees and high shipping costs later in the process, so you never actually pay what is advertised
5. Customer service: it turns out we weren’t the only ones frustrated: the flower industry actually ranks last in customer satisfaction of ecommerce companies – a fact that becomes very apparent on social media every year on Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
Add it all up and you see bouquets advertised for $20 that end up costing closer to $60-$80 and have highly variable quality, all with no transparency into when they’ll actually arrive. Not a very good system, to say the least.
Q: When I send flowers from UrbanStems, I’m emailed a personalized note from my flower delivery person along with a photo of the arrangement held up in front of the recipient’s front door. It always brings a smile to my face as it brings me into the delivery experience. It’s also a form of surprise and delight that you don’t often see in the service business. Describe what a great customer experience means to you.
A: Quite simply, the customer experience is the core of every decision we make at UrbanStems. From the thought and care that goes in to the bouquet designs and the clean and concise layout on our website, to the incredible customer care team and the photo confirmation, we strive to leave the customer feeling like they’ve truly made someone’s day special. We believe that sending should be as fun as receiving and it’s all a part of the “Send Happy” message we want to spread.
Q: Customers have come to expect a high level of service from UrbanStems. How do you keep your team inspired to over-deliver?
A: Well, it helps that we’re surrounded by flowers every day! But more seriously, my co-founder Ajay Kori and I actually built the foundation of the culture of the company before we even knew we were going to be selling flowers. So many people spend most of their waking lives at jobs where they aren’t happy, and we believe that if you can provide an environment where you have smart, kind, ambitious people constantly growing and learning, it’s a true completive advantage for your business.
Not only that, but we truly believe that a great customer experience will win out every time, and the only way to provide that is with a team – from the flower designers to the customer care team to our in-house couriers - that is passionate about going the extra mile to provide that experience.
Q: UrbanStems is going up against some heavy hitters that could potentially outmuscle with bigger service areas or lower prices. How do you continue to differentiate and grow your customer base?
A: To us, it keeps coming back to pushing the envelope in providing the best possible customer experience. If we continue to enable our customers to make someone they love feel special with a hand-delivered bouquet at a moment’s notice, that’s going to be hard to top – no matter how much money someone throws at it.
That’s also why we are carefully selecting each new city we expand to and really engaging within those communities. We could pack our flowers in a box and ship them nationwide, but instead we look at each market uniquely and focus on creating the best experience for the people in that area. We believe that only happens with a physical presence in each city and a team on the ground that is truly a part of the community.
Q: What’s the one thing you wish you had known when you launched UrbanStems?
A: You know, a lack of knowledge can actually serve you really well sometimes. If we had known half of the crazy things we’d see in this industry, I’m not sure where we would’ve ended up. Everyone we talked to who actually worked in floral told us very adamantly that this idea was crazy and would never work, so being naïve and stubborn enough to ignore that and figure it out anyway really served us well.
Q: If you could have one do-over, what would it be?
A: I honestly can’t say I have any massive regrets, because we really believe in testing and iterating and every choice we’ve made has led us to where we are today. That said, launching during a blizzard on Valentine’s Week in 2014 might have not been our wisest moment – but we sure learned a lot ;)
