"When we opened our flower shop, we concurrently set up a Web site," says Gonsalves. "One of the advantages of the Internet for flowers is that, when most people order from a retail store, they have to wait until the shop is open. Then they basically decide on the arrangement they want to send, but they don't see what the other person gets." "The Web site revolutionizes all that. People can go to the site seven days a week, 24 hours a day, when it is convenient to them. They also see a picture of the arrangement that the recipient is going to get because the catalogue is accessible on the Internet."
Of course, one of the disadvantages of the Internet is that "you don't have a personal relationship with your customer," observes Gonsalves. "I can build a relationship with you over the phone, but the Internet is a very cold medium, so what I believe we have to do is compensate with really top-notch service."
For her corporate customers, Gonsalves has such incentives as a free reminder service so customers won't forget important events. She also offers special rates based on a certain volume of orders to appeal to companies that encourage their employees to order from Cyberflowers.
The ultimate "service with a smile," however, is Cyberflowers' live help. During regular business hours, if someone online develops a problem in the middle of a transaction and clicks on live help, an actual operator will answer and talk the customer through the steps. "We also have a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee," says Gonsalves. "We guarantee that the flowers are going to be fresh, and if the customer is not satisfied, we replace them with no questions asked. That's important in terms of customer service."
Another concept introduced by Gonsalves to develop relationships with customers is a Members Club. "It's free," explains Gonsalves. "When you register in the club at Cyberflowers, the next time you log on to the site using your ID and password, it will recognize you. We also offer loyalty points. When you register in the club, you get 100 bonus points that you can redeem towards your next purchase."
To keep Canadian customers coming back, Cyberflowers gives them another special break. "When you go to make a purchase at our site, you can pay in either U.S. or Canadian dollars because we have two Web addresses. One is for customers outside of Canada, and the other is for Canadians only. This way I can give Canadians discounted rates because there is no currency conversion necessary."
Generating traffic is key to growth. The first thing Gonsalves does to ensure people will visit the site is to continually register it on search engine directories. "We register every two months because seach engines change their criteria for listing in their directories and can drop your site. We also have other sites linking to us. I'm told that search engines give you higher positioning on their dirctories if you have a high number of links."
The most popular feature that brings a tremendous number of visitors to Cyberflowers is its free cyberbouquet service. "A customer comes to our Web site and sends a cyberbouquet - which is an image with a card, a message and a tune - to anyone in the world with an e-mail address." Gonsalves says.
"Originally, there were only 12 items to choose from compared to today's offer of over 250 images, and they are categorized by occasion," she explains. "The peson who receives a cyberbouquet can send it to anyone, and their friends can send it to other people. It becomes a referral program. At the end of the tansaction, we invite people to join our mailing list, and that has given us a coveted list of people who are interested in the flower business and turn into customers."
While establishing a successful gift service online is one thing, maintaining it is quite another. "We're continualy modifying and adding things," says Gonsalves. "The revamped site we have now has only been up for a few weeks, and its focus is on helping people buy. We do that by giving information people want, giving advice customers need and making it easy to shop. We believe the site is now easier to navigate, has more options and is fun." And those are the things that help keep clients coming back for more.