Episode 11: Interview with Kami Martin: Your website, reviews and more...
How many of your orders actually come through your website — and what would it take to get that number up? In this episode, Vonda and Lori sit down with Kami Martin, Director of One Clique at Flower Clique, who has spent eight years and roughly 700 florist websites learning what makes online shoppers click "order" and what makes them bounce. She also delivers a step-by-step playbook for the moment every shop owner dreads: the bad online review.
Meet Kami: customer service is who she is
Before the floral industry, Kami was a corporate trainer for a cell phone company, teaching sales, customer service, and even collection agents how to defuse heated situations. Fundamentals can be taught, she says, but the heart of it is ingrained — and as a self-described Enneagram two ("the helper"), helping people is simply who she is. She's also a wife of 15 years and mom to ten-year-old triplet girls, which explains a lot about her patience. Her customer service philosophy fits on a sticky note: everyone just wants to be heard and taken care of, so treat people the way you want to be treated — and don't take upset customers personally, because it's rarely about you.
Lori adds the piece Kami is too modest to say herself: when something goes wrong on a client's website and Kami works through it with them, the relationship comes out stronger on the other side. Hanging in there with a customer through a problem builds a trust that wasn't there before it.
Your website is a menu — even for phone customers
So how much business really comes through the website? From Kami's experience and an informal poll of shops across the country, most florists see one to three out of every ten orders placed online — 10 to 30 percent, with online spiking around Valentine's Day. But that number wildly understates what the website does, because the majority of customers who call the shop looked at the website first. They're checking your phone number, address, and hours — which need to be right at the top — and browsing your arrangements like a menu to see what they can get for their money before they dial.
Lori proves the point on herself: she sends flowers constantly, has never once ordered from a website, and has never once called a shop without studying its website first.
Less inventory, more sales
After 700 websites, Kami sees one clear pattern in the shops that succeed online: simplicity. The homepage is the number one page customers buy from, so it needs to be easy to click, easy to buy from, and show real variety — in style, color, and especially price, from the $40 arrangement to the $140 one. Shoppers will visit maybe two or three pages; they will not scroll through endless products. The sites with pages upon pages of inventory convert worse than a birthday category with one tidy page of about 20 designs.
Vonda connects it to the book The Paradox of Choice: too many options paralyze shoppers, and even after they choose, they don't feel confident about it. Lori's shorthand is the Cheesecake Factory menu — a novel you have to read before dinner. Kami's line to florists: "You're not the Cheesecake Factory." And limited inventory has a bonus that's unique to flowers — you sell fresh product, so a simplified website doesn't just raise your conversion rate, it makes sure you can actually deliver what people order.
Six steps for answering a bad review
Kami has seen the full range of review responses, from amazing to cringeworthy, and her advice comes down to six steps:
1. Step back before you respond. Never take to the keyboard while you're emotional — telling "your side" and throwing a customer under the bus never plays out well online. 2. Remember the future audience. You're not just answering one person; potential customers will read your response for years. 3. Start with an apology. Whatever happened, they truly had that experience, so apologize on behalf of the shop. 4. Reiterate your goal. "Here at Flowers Etc., our goal is customer satisfaction every time" tells future shoppers what you stand for. 5. Address or fix the problem. If the complaint is legitimate, thank them for the feedback and make it right — a replacement design, whatever fits. 6. Ask them to change the review. Once it's resolved, ask if they'll update or remove it. A one-star review turned into a five-star "they took care of me" is one of the most powerful reviews a shop can have.
And monitor your reviews so you can do all of this in a timely way — nothing says "I care about your experience" like a prompt, thoughtful response. Lori adds the encouraging truth behind it all: in her experience, 99.9 percent of shop owners are genuinely heartbroken by a bad review because they never want anything less than a great experience leaving their shop.
Key takeaways
- Expect 10-30 percent of orders online — but know that most phone customers checked your website first, so treat it like your menu.
- Put your phone number, address, and hours at the very top of your site.
- Simplify: a homepage that's easy to buy from and categories with about 20 well-priced options convert better than endless pages of product.
- Show a range of price points so customers can see what they get for $40 versus $140.
- Answer bad reviews calmly and promptly: apologize, state your commitment, fix the issue, then ask the customer to update the review.
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist