About Lily's Florist USA

The Short Version

We're not your typical flower delivery company. In 2007, my wife and I bought a struggling gift shop in a tiny Australian beach town with a baby on the way and zero knowledge about flowers. When the phone kept ringing with flower orders we couldn't fulfill, we had our "aha moment" – what if we partnered with local florists everywhere to deliver beautiful arrangements on behalf of customers?

That simple idea grew from 1 partner florist to 150 in Australia, then led us all the way to the USA. Today, we work with over 15,000 local florists across America, but we're still just a small team of 7 people working from a little office in North Carolina. No corporate bureaucracy, no giant call centers – just real people who care about getting your flowers delivered perfectly.

Yes, we're technically an "order gatherer," but we're the kind that started with a baby breaking vases in a flower shop and built everything from scratch. We're Dennis, Dan, Andrew (that's me), my wife, and our small but mighty team including Joan, an ex-florist with 30 years of experience. We believe in personal service, supporting local florists, and treating every order like it's going to our own family.

Want The Full Adventure?

Keep reading below for the complete story of how we went from that $20 day in the cash register to helping thousands of Americans send flowers with a personal touch.

For one reason or another, and I cannot think of why, but I have never chosen to tell this story. I have wanted to, don't get me wrong, but I just wasn't sure it would 'go down' with, well, you our customers, in the USA. But, in truth, I wanted to place a name, a story, to what we do, no longer are we to be another, faceless, flower delivery business. Yeah, it's a risk, but at least I think it's a cracking yarn. I know right (or IKR as my 14 year old daughter would say) I promise to keep the Australianisms to a minimum.

My name is Andrew. My wife and I, knowing absolutely nothing about flowers bought a flower and gift shop in Australia, yeah 'down under' I can hear you say, many, many miles away - in NSW actually. A state with around seven million people, made famous by Sydney, the Opera House, and Bondi Beach. 

The shop we bought though was far from the grind and bright lights of Sydney where I grew up, tucked away in a tiny coastal beach town, the move from the city was a must at that time in our lives with my wife and partner 2 months pregnant. Think Sequim WA, Pismo Beach CA, or Port Isabel TX in terms of size and location to the water. The idea? Scale down the flowers, scale up the gifts with things like baby care, organic skin care, food and so on, that is flowers meet organic shop. At least that was the plan.

Again, I can hear you thinking to yourself, but what has this got to do with flower delivery in the USA? I am getting there!

After a serious renovation of the shop we opened the doors in September 2006. Let's go. It was November, the town bursting with local and tourist life, we were selling a few bouquets that we were getting made by a local florist who had her own home studio, and the gifts were flying out the door, it was great. The momentum continued throughout Christmas and into the new year. Then it hit us, like a ton of rose, just as quickly as the rush had come, it was mostly gone. The tourist surge had given us a false economy of sorts, it was kind of scary.

By the end of June 2007, it was even worse. Whilst winters are not especially cold, the town gets quiet, like really quiet. $20 in the till (cash register) was becoming more frequent, day on day. But one thing didn't die down, day on day, that dang phone kept on ringing. People in our area, wanting to send flowers to other places, in our area, in other cities closeby, in other states even. To which our typical response was something along the lines of "sorry, you will need to call another florist...". Still perplexed by all the calls, we soon discovered that the previous owner had taken out an add in a local directory, think along the lines of Yelp or similar. Well that explained it, in mid-July 2007 the light bulb went on, and thankfully, as things were looking rather grim.

The Aha Moment

The Day Everything Changed

Sitting in the shop, turning away the 20th call for flowers outside our area that day and with probably less than $20 in the till that day, it happened. We both looked at each other with a blend of despair and optimism all rolled into one. What if we took the call and the order, charged the customer, then phoned a florist in the town that they were sending to, gave them the order and got them to deliver them. What if? This could actually save us.

Meeting Bev - Our First Partner

I remember the first call like it was yesterday, to a small town near us called Murwillumbah. I rang the local florist, told her briefly about us and asked if I could pop in and introduce myself and share my proposal, 'of course' she said. 

WIth a fair amount of trepidation, I popped my 12 month old baby, Asha, into her baby seat and took off, it was (and still is as we still live in that beach town of Kingscliff) about a 25 minute drive from the shop. I walked into a flower shop, Murwillumbah Flower Shed it was called, popped Asha onto the ground and waited, and patiently waited, then I heard the loudest crash. Asha had clumsily, half crawled, half walked, over to a gift stand and pulled off something of interest, some very, very breakable. There it was, strewn all over the ground in 1000 pieces! Oh my, what a start, suffice is to say that the trepidation turned rapidly to anxiety. Shall I leave, shall I say, what a mess, what am I doing here, I am in too deep, I am not even a florist. Oh my.

Bev, the owner, peeked around the corner, thinking the worst, I said 'hi, I am Andrew, I rang you earlier today about helping us with our flower orders. Oh, and um, I am so sorry, but how much do I owe you for the gift...?". Asha's big entrance, little did I know, was the ultimate icebreaker, despite feeling shattered myself. Bev was smitten, she had a granddaughter the same age and she lovingly picked Asha up while I helped clean up, still sweating with anticipation.

I nervously proceeded to chat about our shop, the flowers and all the calls we were getting for flowers to Murwillumbah and how I was hoping she could help us with those. This was my plan:

• I build a website for Bev
• I put our phone number on it
• I exclusively give all the orders I get from that website to Bev
• I would not charge her any fees
• All I asked in return was that she throw in a few more flowers to cover our commission

Remember, this was now 2007. To my knowledge, nobody, globally, had thought of this idea in the flower industry, it was pretty edgy, but Bev got it, she was on board, and she was excited, mainly as she had absolutely no idea about websites, back then.

Bev became our first official florist partner, much to my surprise, she got it, and the idea, the hope, the saviour, was coming to fruition. Phew! 

The Pivot to Flowers

Over the next few months we built a website for Bev, using Ashop Intelligent Commerce and, pretty soon worked out it was actually pretty easy. Not just easy to build, but in 2007, to rank #1 for this website, we chose murwillumbahflorist.com.au as the website. Without exaggeration, it ranked #1 in Google in about 2 weeks. Suddenly, we were no longer getting calls for flowers to Murwillumbah from customers calling us from our shop number but were now getting online orders for that location, plus call to place orders for that location. But not just one or two a week, but at least 10-15 a week more.

The Multiplier Effect

It wasn't long before the grand aha moment, the one that changed everything, which ultimately led us to the USA. One late Thursday afternoon in August 2007, after our 10th order to Murwillumbah alone that week we thought, well we did it for Murwillumbah, what if we did the same thing for other small regional towns close to us, maybe if we build 5 websites or so, perhaps we could get 5 times more orders?

Scaling Up

Rinse and repeat. We contacted 5 florists in towns relatively close to us, Byron Bay, Taree, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, and one very far away in a different state as a trial in Townsville. Same story, same outcome, all the florists were excited to get on board and by Christmas 2007 we had 6 partner florists and 6 ecommerce websites feeding orders to them. It was evolving and rapidly, and so were the calls and orders.

The shop, well there was still no money in the cash register, as everything was done online or via our credit card terminal now, it was crazy. For every one person that came into the shop to buy a $2 soap, we would have over 20 orders online for flowers. But still, the shop was losing money, it was a grind, and we persisted.

Time to Sell The Flower Shop & go Online

Over the next 2 years we would contact at least another 30 florists dotted mostly on the East Coast of Australia pushing our partner network to over 35. By this time, the it was almost inconvenient for someone walking into the shop to buy a skin care product, as we were too crazy busy with flowers. By mid-2009, we were having second thoughts about the shop, the flowers were going so well, we decided it was time, time to back ourselves, time to take it to another level, we decided flowers were going to be our saviour.

We put the shop part of the business up for sale, and by some form of miracle, we able to sell the shop's organic business within a month of listing it. This was one of the more defining moments of our evolution, that was it, we were all in with flowers. 

Working From Our Living Room

We moved our entire operation, well, to a 3 bedroom condo we were living in at the time (renting that is), my wife downstairs answering the phone, me upstairs in the home office doing dev work and building more websites for more partner florists.

I remember clearly getting to that 50th website with Ashop and 50th partner florist with Ashop and thinking, my goodness, what have we created. It was close to out of control. Not only that, we were building our own home about 10 minutes down the road, the double garage being the new and proper home office which added extra stress, if you have ever built your own home, you will know what I mean. But, we were living in a small home and didn't want to hire someone to help and working in this environment, it will have to wait, breathe, push on.

Building the Lily's Florist Brand

That year though, we had another thought, we were sending all these orders on all these websites to florists but we had no identity, no brand, no face. All the orders going to our partners had financial value to both of us but no long-tail value to something, a face. Perhaps we could start a national brand of our own, something we could call our own, something that would work in parallel with our partner websites, not competing with, but complimenting each other. That's it, that was the missing piece, but how, but what, and how would we build it. Ashop to the rescue, yet again, our 51st website, it was decided, would be Lily's Florist (Australia). This was our thought:

• Build a national brand
• Have a national phone number
• A national identity
• Build location pages for far more places, now we could target large cities, with one website, rather than many and filter all those orders to both existing and new partner florist we hope we could get along the way
• To my knowledge, not one online florist, anywhere, in 2008-2009 was approaching business this way

We did it, we built our Lily's Florist, from the ground up, on our own, literally a Mum & Pop, with baby in tow. A new beginning, a national brand, but where to now...

The Home Office and Ramping Up

In 2010, much to our relief, we moved into our new home, and sparkling new home office/garage. I mean the office had workstations for the possible employees we would hire, a VOIP phone system, recess lighting, carpet, its own separate bathroom, air-conditioning, coffee machine, it was quite the set up, for a young family on a budget and who had big dreams!

We hired too, actually it was a strategic stroke of genius. We decided to hire two ex-florists as both to manage inbound flower calls, but also to manage the existing and future florist network. Because, in all honesty, they could talk the talk in a way that we never could.

Over the next 2 years we would build our network from the 50 to over 150 partner florists. Our national website would go from a few landing pages to 100's, and our partner florist website up to about the 90 mark. What was becoming clear though was that managing so many individual websites was getting very, very challenging, actually almost impossible, there just had to be a better way. But where and how? 

In 2012 we began doing research, we needed a tech solution that could easily manage 90 websites, and create many more. We were being held back now expanding the website partner model by our problem, but more on that later.

A Sliding Door Moment

Whilst researching other software options in early 2012, ironically, I was personally contacted by the owner of Ashop, having 90+ websites was perhaps the reason. He said to me something along the lines of "hey, there is a major ecommerce news website in the USA that wants to do a story on one of our clients and I have put you forward, are you interested...?". Initially I thought no, but after mulling it over, we decided to go for it, but what transpired after that was something we never imagined. The story went live and was titled Lessons Learned: SEO Makes Australian Florist Bloom. I was super nervous on the phone with the reporter, I had never done anything like this before and I was way out of my comfort zone, but I got through it and our story, at that point in time was 'out in the wild' so to speak and we thought nothing more of it.

That was at least, until I got, what I thought was, an unusual email from a competitor here. They explained who they were, what they do, how they had read our story, and was wondering if they could help us with our orders. Hmmm, very interesting. I will be honest, I was a little flippant about it, not quite understanding the magnitude of the message, but I meekly said my partner and I would think about it and moved on.

Not too long after that, I get another email from them, but this time from someone big boss of the company, he said that he was going to be in my area and wanted to meet up, and that he had read our story. I later discovered that they were owned by a much larger company in the U.S, like one of the largest flowers and gifting companies there (you can read into where I am heading with this). Whoa I thought, you want to meet the family and I?

A few months later we, by we, all of us, the now two kids in tow this time, at a restaurant near to where we live, full of curiosity and wonder.

The Proposal That Changed Everything

The proposal was as simple as it was complex, at least to us. We had a new house, an office full of staff, phones, our own network...he proposed to us that they absorb all our florist partners into their much larger network (over 800 at the time), they manage all our inbound calls and all our customer service. Wait what? Very interesting proposal but that's one we need to sit on, and for some time.

The Bali Backstory

In 2010 we had our first visit to Bali in Indonesia. We fell in love instantly. As we moved away from our family in 2006 we were completely isolated, not one babysitter, running our own business, the stress, the grind and pain at times. Bali was fresh, it gave us time to reset, we had babysitters for the first time ever, we had time away from the kids, well hours, we got massages, we absorbed the culture and relaxed for what seemed the first time, like ever. So with that, Bali became our our second home, going there two or even three times a year.

Each time we went to Bali we grew even more in love with it, if that was even possible, but if you know Bali, you know.

So, on one of our visits in late 2012, sitting around possibly the most amazing pool we have ever seen, we looked at each other with basically the same thought, marriage will sometimes do that to you. Hang on, if we didn't have an office or staff, maybe we could move to Bali and work remotely...BOOM. Enter that, what had now become, and unbelievable proposal. Yes, that's it, that's how we can move to Bali, cue the proposal that changed everything, not just in business but in our personal lives too.

2013 - Oh What a Year

In early 2013, it was time for a change. A massive one.

We had found a tech partner that was going to make our new software platform to manage all our websites and that was well underway.

We had decided to push forward on the proposal offer which was set to come to fruition June 1, 2013.

We had set a goal to move to Bali in January 2014.

Breaking the News

The question was, how were we going to break the news to our staff whom we cared about so much. It was one of the toughest conversions I have had in business, really rough. They all understood and were very happy for us, and green with envy, mostly, as were moving to Bali. All our staff finished up after Mother's Day in May 2013 and by June 1 that year, all our phones were ported to our new partners office, all our orders were ported into their network, and all our partner florists were also moved into their network. It was done, oh wow, we had some freedom now, the stress around not having to worry about staff and the day to day grind was liberating, we had not felt like this for 6 years, and new beginning, and new time, and later, new opportunities, but in a different country.

The USA Flowers Idea Bubbles Away From Bali

Two Years in Paradise

We were in Bali from January 4, 2014. Initially, we were to be there for 3 months, the kids were going to the Australian School there, but seriously, after 2 weeks, we were like, yeah 3 months isn't enough. It quickly became 12 months, 18, and ended up being 2 years to almost the day. It would become the most memorable time of our lives, creating lifelong memories and friendships both, almost all of which are still with us to this day.

During our time in Bali, one thing was clear. The new platform that we built was immense, powerful, and could be replicated. We thought on numerous occasions, where else could we replicate the idea of Lily's Florist? Maybe in Bali, or perhaps in Europe, or just maybe, the USA.

Assembling the USA Team

During those years, and still to this day, I had become very close to one of the senior managers that we partnered with, he was doing a stint in Australia, from California, managing the Australian arm of their U.S business. Later, his friendship would become a blessing, for, not too long after he left for another position I proposed to him that we start the USA arm of Lily's Florist, leveraging my relationship with him (Dan), my relationship with our partners and their parent company in the U.S, and his relationship with his previous employer.

The idea evolved over time, and Dan thought it would be a good idea to bring in his best mate Dennis who immediately I gelled with which was great. The plan? Duplicate the software platform, and host it on a USA server. Luckily, thinking ahead, I had bought https://lilysflorist.com/ from someone a few years earlier, for a crazy amount of money, so that was great.

The Counter Proposal

We had the vision, the URL, the software and IP, the team, now Dan and I had to propose the idea, kind of in reverse, to our USA partner, you know, the awesome and massive flower and gifting company in America that approached us all those years ago. By this time, we had been with them for around 5 years, struck up a wonderful working relationship with them for Lily's Florist Australia, so when Dan and I proposed a similar model for the USA, they agreed in full. Gratefully, we thanked them and now, game on.

The concept had now turned into a reality, we now had a pipeline to over 15,000 florists in the USA. Wow, I am still pinching myself to this day at the magnitude of it. From a tiny flower and gift shop in rural Australia to this...

The Pain Point

By this time, I had spent almost 10 years in the online flower game, but in Australia, not the U.S. Even after all that experience and rather naively I thought, so we will just flip the model to the U.S., just like we were doing in Australia and we will be on our merry way. No way. 

We quickly learnt that online shoppers in the U.S are very different, far more mature, and have a much stronger allegiance to local florists, in the area they are sending flowers to. Moreover, florists, even in the partner network, had a very different attitude to what they deemed to be 'order gatherers'. How would we stand out, how could be differ ourselves, what could our USP be, what makes us different. 

I had to relearn everything, every detail, learn about different tastes, different buying habits, different holidays, different expectations, pricing, rules and regulations, tax, I could go on. It was tough at the beginning, actually still is to this day! Part of the motivation of telling this story, even after not telling it for 8 years, was the hope of giving us that edge, fronting up, and saying this is who we are, and what we do.

The Now - What We Are

We are Lily's Florist. It is run by Dennis, Dan, myself Andrew and my wife. Our tiny office is located in a small town in North Carolina. We have 3 employees, one of my old friends from Bali named Ayu, she helps with adding the orders to the network. We have Bonnie who does the same, but also all the customer service, Phoebe who works remotely from Vancouver, Dan is a mentor to the business and both Dennis and I work on business management.

We are just a very small team of people hoping to turn an idea that spawned way back in 2007 into something much greater and, hopefully, earn a few dollars along the way, and support a few other people and their families who work for us.

We don't have a giant marketing team, we have no legal team, we don't have big sales meetings, we don't go on business junkets. 

But we are an order gatherer, we cannot hide that, but the hope in sharing this story is that we are just that little bit different, more real, less corporate, and way more like someone, just like you.

* Family photo, Andrew, Siobhan, Ivy and Asha

Joan - our flower guru

Joan left school at seventeen. That was 1988, in Burlington, North Carolina, a Piedmont mill town where the options after high school were textiles, tobacco, or something else entirely. She picked something else.

Her grandmother gardened. Not the weekend-puttering kind. The kind who knew Latin names and would correct you if you called a Dianthus a "pink." Joan spent enough summers pulling weeds and deadheading roses in that yard to know she liked working with living things more than sitting in a classroom. When a flower shop in Burlington put a help-wanted card in the window, she walked in. Seventeen years old, no experience, and honest about both.

They gave her a broom and a bucket.

For close to a year, that was the job. Sweeping the cool room floor. Stripping thorns. Conditioning stems at five in the morning before the shop opened. Running deliveries in the afternoon. She wasn't designing anything. She was watching. The owner had been running that shop since the early seventies and did not hand the bench over to anyone who hadn't earned it. Joan tells me she learned more in that first year about reading people than she did about flowers. A woman walks in and can't finish her sentence, you don't ask what the occasion is. You already know.

By nineteen she was on the bench. By her early twenties she'd moved closer to the Raleigh-Durham area, where the volume was different. Research Triangle was booming in the early nineties. Tech companies moving in, new money, lots of corporate accounts, hospital work, weddings most weekends, and funeral sprays week in, week out. A flower shop in that corridor in 1992 was flat out.

Somewhere in her mid-twenties she went through the NCCPF program. That's the North Carolina Certified Professional Florist certification, run by the NC State Florists Association. Nine courses, three hands-on workshops, a final exam covering everything from design principles to sympathy mechanics to business management. By the time she sat the exam she'd already been on the bench for the better part of a decade, so the design and handling modules were formalizing what her hands already knew. The business management side, she'll admit, taught her things she hadn't picked up standing behind a counter.

She spent the next twenty-odd years in shops across central North Carolina. Never Charlotte, never Asheville. Always that Piedmont corridor between Burlington and Raleigh. She ran a shop in Greensboro for a stretch in the early 2000s. Managed staff, handled the accounts, built the funeral program into the shop's steadiest revenue line. I asked her once how many arrangements she reckons she's made over the years. She said she stopped counting a long time ago, but north of forty thousand would not surprise her.

Sympathy became her deep specialty. Not because she chose it. Because she was the one people kept asking for. When a family had lost someone and didn't know where to start, the other staff would say, talk to Joan. She could sit with a grieving widow for twenty minutes, not rush her, help her pick between a casket spray and a standing spray, explain why white roses hold up better at a graveside service than garden roses, and send her home feeling like at least one thing in a terrible week had been handled properly. That skill set does not come from a textbook. It comes from doing it hundreds of times until the words stop feeling rehearsed and start feeling true.

By her late forties, Joan was tired. Thirty years of four-thirty alarms. Standing on concrete all day. Hands in cold water. Funeral weeks where you're building twenty or thirty sprays between Monday and Friday, and every single one matters to somebody who's barely holding it together. The physical side of floristry doesn't get talked about much, but it grinds people down. Joan stepped away from the bench.

She came to us at Lily's Florist to handle inbound calls for the US operation in 2018. Honestly, it's the thing she was always best at anyway. The bench work was her craft, but the phone was her gift. She's the voice you get when you're trying to send sympathy flowers to a hospital you've never been to, or when you're a bloke who's never ordered flowers in his life and your wife's birthday is tomorrow and you have no idea where to start. Joan does not make you feel stupid for not knowing. She just steers you to the right thing and makes it sound like you chose it yourself.

Joan doesn't arrange anymore. But she's forgotten more about flowers than most people will ever learn, and you can hear three decades of bench work in every call she takes.

Bonnie - Our Other Flower Guru

Get to know Bonnie:

A North Carolina native through and through, I grew up in the country in Hickory before finding my home on the coast 12 years ago. After graduating from Meredith College with two Bachelor’s Degrees, I eventually transitioned my love for the Tar Heel State into my work here at Lily’s Florist. When I’m not helping our customers share their most important moments through flowers, you can find me embracing my favorite role: 'Soccer Mom.' My 9-year-old son is my world, and whether we’re at the beach or on the sidelines of a game, I’ve never been happier to call the NC coast my home.

With an extensive background in Human Resources leadership, I joined Lily’s Florist six years ago as a Customer Service Supervisor. I was looking for a local company that valued flexibility.  When I found the opening at Lily’s Florist, everything clicked—a local owner, a remote setup, and a chance to try something new. Bringing my years of corporate experience to a local business has been a rewarding journey, and I’ve truly fallen in love with the heart and hustle of the floral industry.

* Our guru Bonnie

No two days are the same at Lily’s Florist! I spend my time entering and wiring orders to talented local florists nationwide, always with a sharp eye on accuracy and timing. I’m also the primary point of contact for solving any issues that arise; I’m a firm believer in great communication and fair solutions. Whether I’m assisting you with a new order or sending a promo code to your inbox for your next big occasion, I’m here to ensure everything runs smoothly behind the scenes.

Interacting with our customers is truly the highlight of my day. I approach every conversation as if I’m speaking with a member of my own family, whether I’m offering suggestions to help you choose the perfect arrangement for a milestone or helping you navigate our newest products. I understand that flowers are more than just a gift—they are a message. That’s why, if we ever fall short, I take it to heart. I take full accountability, listen truly to your concerns, and won't rest until we’ve reached a solution that leaves you 100% satisfied. My goal is to turn every challenge into a reason for you to trust us even more.

A great arrangement starts with a great relationship. I’ve spent my career at Lily’s Florist cultivating deep, professional ties with a nationwide network of 1000's partnering florists. This isn't just a list of names to me—these are partners I trust. My personal rapport with these florists allows me to ensure the highest standards of quality and accountability. I know exactly which florist to call to ensure our customers get the best possible work in any given city. I know which designer excels at modern styles and who creates the most traditional displays, allowing me to hand-select the best fit for your specific needs. It’s that insider knowledge that guarantees our 100% satisfaction promise.

A few anecdotes you can think of any time in the last two, three years or whatever, about stories or funny interactions you have with customers or florists or any little things like that.

If my phone could talk, it would have some incredible stories! I’ve had the thrill of assisting orders for celebrities like Niall Horan, Kid Rock and Roseanne Barr with their floral needs, but honestly, the 'regular' customers often leave the biggest impression. I’ll never forget a young man who called in, so nervous he could barely speak, wanting to impress a girl he had a massive crush on. I stepped into 'mentor mode,' learning about both of them until we found the perfect floral match to help him make his move. To me, that’s the beauty of Lily’s Florist: whether you're a rock star or a kid with a crush, you get my full heart and expertise.

It doesn't matter what mistake it is but ideally to do with flowers or customer support or something. List the mistakes and what you did to fix them.

In my six years here, I’ve learned that the floral business is as much about accountability as it is about beauty. I’ve made my share of mistakes—from missing a delivery date to entering a wrong address or selecting the wrong arrangement size. Each time, my response was the same: take full responsibility. I believe in being 100% honest with our customers. By admitting the error and doing whatever it takes to correct it—whether that’s a refund, a redelivery, or an upgrade—I’ve turned those 'misses' into long-term relationships built on trust.

Meet Phoebe

My name is Phoebe, currently residing in Canada but originally from the Philippines. With a background in psychology and recreation, I have always been drawn to helping people find meaningful connections with others and with oneself. Through flowers, I get to be part of creating wonderful moments and bringing positive experiences to customers by providing proactive and seamless online floral delivery support. When I’m not doing flower work, you can catch me taking nature walks or listening to a thriller audiobook with a cup of coffee!

* A photo of Phoebe

I started working at Lily’s Florist in 2017 as a content writer where I wrote blogs, product descriptions, and website content for Lily’s Florist USA. In 2023, when I moved to Canada, I transitioned to be part of the Lily’s Florist Customer Support Team where I now work remotely helping customers find the best flowers to give to their loved ones and friends.

On a typical day, I process online orders and work closely with our partner florists to make sure each arrangement is delivered as intended and as timely as possible. I also support customers by responding to inquiries and resolving any issues or concerns with care and attention.

One of the loveliest things about my job is having the chance to interact with customers, even just by phone or online. You get to know different stories, happy or sad – sometimes they just want someone to listen to them and let them know that the flowers they will send will surely make a difference to their recipient’s day. It’s also a joy to hear positive experiences and feedback especially when they give a shout-out on how you were able to help them send flowers during the busiest times of the year.

Local florists are heroes and it’s always a privilege to be able to work with them and learn from them. It’s nice to work with people whom you share a common goal of bringing the beauty and joy of flowers to customers and making ordinary moments turn special for each one of them.

One memorable moment was when a customer had to send a last-minute Mother’s Day gift, but their orders from other online shops kept getting cancelled. I assured them that I’ll do my best to help them, so what I did was call all the local florists in the area and ask them if they can squeeze in the customer’s order. Thankfully, one of the local florists was kind enough to accept the order – it both made the customer and their mother very happy!

List three mistakes you made in the business. It doesn't matter what mistake it is but ideally to do with flowers or customer support or something. List the mistakes and what you did to fix them.

There was a time when I put the incorrect state in the delivery address as there are towns in different states with the same names. Upon knowing this, I immediately contacted the florist and explained it was missent to their shop. The florist kindly accepted the cancellation, and I sent the order to the right local florist right away, just in time for the order to be delivered on the same day.

Sometimes, system glitches are inevitable, and this greatly affects the timely processing of orders. One time, when the system was down, I was unable to process the customer’s payment right away and so the delivery was not sent the same day. I called the customer as soon as I could to notify them that their order might not be processed on the same day. I offered them a next-day delivery or a refund and I will arrange accordingly. Fortunately, the customer understood and approved the next-day delivery – I thanked them and offered them a special discount on their next flower order.

One time, I was unable to notify the customer that their ordered flower selection was not available, and so what their recipient received was a Designer’s Choice bouquet. Upon receiving their feedback, I responded to apologize for the non-discretion and explained why substitutions are sometimes made due to the seasonal availability of the flowers. I offered them a discount for their next order, and they understood and accepted the discount.