Bad Business

First we had the homophobic photographer, and now this...

Chad and I did some searching around for florists. That business is definitely word of mouth, so we contacted four different places. Of those, only one responded. It happened to be the florist my sister used for her wedding, Artemesia. The owner, Kim, responded pretty quickly even though she was out of the country. She had us fill out a form online, and got us a mid-range quote pretty quickly. Great... we were all set to meet with Kim and were already impressed with her customer service. From there, it went down hill.

Last Thursday we were supposed to meet Kim at 7:30pm. Around 6:00 I get a phone call from her saying she was not feeling well and we should cancel. Okay, not a problem... if you're sick, you're sick. I then told Missy who said, "Yup, that sounds about right... she's pretty flaky." Ummm... hello?!?!?! Why didn't you tell me that before?!?!?! Whatever, Missy reads this blog, and truth be told, I cannot fault her because in the end, Artemesia did a nice job with their wedding.

So, we re-scheduled for 6:00 last night. At 5:15, Chad gets a call from Kim saying she wants to confirm our 6:30 appointment. He said, "I thought it was for 6:00." She said 6:30 would work because we would not need the full hour. Yet her website, and all of her information she sends clearly states she likes an hour for the first consultation. So Chad tells me, and I say "Uh uh. We are meeting her at 6:00." I called Kim and explained that we had somewhere to be later and that my mom was meeting us there at 6:00. She said okay and she will see us then.

We had no idea how long it would take to get there, so we were VERY early (5:30). As we were walking in the door to the place where we were going to meet her, my phone rang. It was Kim... go figure. "Hi Alex. I am sorry, I do not like to involve my clients in my personal life..." and she went on about being out in Maple Grove with an emergency tooth ache for her boyfriend, and yadda, yadda, yadda. She said there is no way she would be there by 6:00... she did not even know how to get to our meeting place from where she was. Pardon my French, but... ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?! So she said she may not even make it by 6:30, but we were welcome to wait for her. I told her no thank you, I will not be waiting, and hung up.

A person who relies on word of mouth, should have a LOT better customer service skills than that. First, she tried to lie about the time we were meeting by calling Chad and not me. Hello... we had her confirmation she e-mailed us that said 6:00. Then, she flakes again for the second meeting in a row. And then, worst of all in my opinion, she did not even try to save face. No apology e-mail, no phone call, nothing.

So... if you are looking for a florist, do yourself a favor and DO NOT, under any circumstances use Artemesia.

And as long as I am bad mouthing businesses, don't use Ramsey Photography either... they are the homophobic assholes. Cheers!

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