Serenata

Excellent service, good quality fresh flowers delivered on time. Will use Serenata for any future flower requirements.

All I wanted was flowers on my mothers 87th birthday. I ordered 2 days in advance, I got notified that they were out for delivery, then that the delivery had failed.

Since my mother never leaves the retirement home, I found it odd that the delivery could fail. Theres no number to call for any time-sensitive queries, but I must admit their email responses are rapid (although entirely useless).

The response was the delivery was delayed due to adverse weather. Weather in the south that day was Partly sunny with a slight breeze (this was 4 days after the snow in the UK). Not beach weather, but surely someone in a van could manage.

I responded and was told they would check with their courier but to be patient as this can take 24-48 hours. Well, that kind of defeats the point of making sure flowers were delivered that day, so I asked for a refund, so I could make alternate arrangements with a local florist. The response was we are unable to arrange a refund as they were delivering in line with their terms and conditions related to the adverse weather (you know the partly sunny and breezy bit).

The responses got more ridiculous after that, but heres the warning for those of you considering this company:

While perhaps there was a backlog due to previous adverse weather, if they knew that they should have it posted clearly as a potential problem as they continued to take orders despite very little chance of making an on-time delivery. If you get caught with weather, traffic, etc., youre probably out of luck.

If there is a problem with your delivery, actually finding out what is going on is unlikely as there seems to be no real link between this company and the couriers they outsource delivery to. The dispatch times they reviewed with me were on completely different days compared to the dispatch emails I received. In addition, saying that theyll find out 24-48 hours later is absolutely useless.

Anyway, sad to miss an 87th birthday; frustrated to have to be on emails and wasting time finding out whats going on; annoyed that there was absolutely no refund, credit or recompense.

I would stick with local services if I were you.