Interview with Kami Martin: Your website, reviews and more...

#011: Join Vonda and Lori as they talk with Kami Martin, the Director of One Clique, an important part of Flower Clique. In her many years of working with flower shop owners in assisting with their website, Kami is a wealth of knowledge and shares some important tips on what really matters on your website, as well as strategic inventory and online reviews. You will also get to know what drives Kami to achieve her amazing customer service skills and what she is most proud of today.

For more information: https://www.thebusinessandpleasureofflowers.com/

Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist

Transcript

Vonda 0:08

Welcome to The Business and Pleasure of Flowers. We're your hosts. Vonda LaFever.

Lori 0:12

and Lori Wilson . And we believe that business and fun are a perfect combination, kind of like us. Vonda,

Vonda 0:26

our special guest today is Kami Martin . We're so excited to have a guest today.

Kami 0:31

Hi girls , thanks for having me.

Lori 0:34

Hi Kami, how are you doing?

Kami 0:35

Great. A little nervous to be here on my first podcast.

Lori 0:39

You know, think about this. So Vonda I don't know if you know, but yesterday Kami and I did a Facebook live for all of our podcast members Facebook group. We did it from my car in the freezing cold in the parking lot of a Trader Joe's. So that was her first time to doing that. And today's her first time doing a podcast.

Kami 1:03

Always learning new things with you, Lori .

Lori 1:05

Yes it was. It was fun though, wasn't it?

Kami 1:08

It was . We were showing snacks that would be good for the shops. Yes. Healthy snacks. And someone said it looked like we were pulling out snacks from a Mary Poppins bag. We had so many that just kept popping out.

Lori 1:25

And then a few other of our friends in flower shop owners commented, why are you not in my shop helping me today?

Kami 1:35

I did feel kind of bad about that.

Lori 1:37

I did too.

Vonda 1:38

Exactly. You're having so much fun in a parking lot.

Lori 1:41

Right. And this morning I was laughing because you know, we were talking about things with nutrition in them. The first thing I saw on Facebook this morning was one of our shops posted a picture of donuts. And like on my second donut.

Kami 1:58

I know but that's the reality zone, you know?

Lori 2:01

And I'm like, Ooh, that does look good. They've probably been in their shop since 11 o'clock last night. They got another shipment in and they were very deserving of a donut .

Vonda 2:11

Yes, very muchly so, well, some people here do not know who Kami Martin is. So let's do a quick intro. I'd just like to tell you that Kami works at Flower Clique and she's the director of one- clique, which is the program that provides the solution for your floral website by simplifying inventory, increasing profit margin, and actually doing the work for you. Kami today, we want to get some of your expertise on websites, but before we get into that, we want to learn a little bit about you.

Kami 2:44

Yeah, sure. What do you want to know? No, so I've been in the industry for about eight years. The floral industry helping florists with websites and just their overall online. I've been doing that, before getting into the floral industry. I worked for a cell phone company. I was a corporate trainer who taught sales and customer service agents and now it's on a personal note. First and foremost, I'm a Christian and my faith is very important to me, so I can't tell you about myself without saying that. But also I'm a mom and a wife. I've been married to Matt for 15 years. We have three girls that are all 10 years old.

Lori 3:29

You're not just a regular mom.

Kami 3:32

I'm a triplet mom . I'm a super mom, 10 year old triplet girls. That's how I would sum myself up.

Vonda 3:42

I think customer service, what you were saying that that's what you did for that other company to some degree can be taught, but I think much of it is ingrained in the person themselves, which is what I'm kind of hearing from you. It's part of who you are. It's that Christian background. It's the caring for other people. Respect. I think that goes hand in hand with what you're saying.

Kami 4:04

I do like to help people. It's a part of who I am. I was telling Lori I'm a two on the Enneagram. If you know what the enneagram is, which we can have a whole podcast on that.

Lori 4:14

We brought it up with the Ellie because we're all different.

Kami 4:17

Yeah, it's who I am. I'm a two, which is a helper. So I do like to help people and I get a lot of fulfillment and helping people, which is good in my role as in life. Right? But yeah, I did learn a lot about fundamentals about customer service in the corporate training days, teaching customer service, and even collection agents. Now that's a hard topic, collecting past due bills, which can really be a heated situation. So we had to go into how to diffuse a situation. And those fundamental people skills, they can be taught, they can be taught that . But a lot of those are ingrained in just somebody of course. But, and the one thing, you know, I'm in technology too, that changes. That's constantly changing, but I don't think customer service really changes how to treat people doesn't change. That's a constant. And I was listening to your podcast.

Lori 5:11

Ooh, we have a listener, Vonda, thanks for listening.

Kami 5:14

What you guys talked about, customer service. You really hit the nail on the head with listening, empathizing, putting yourself in their shoes. I'm a customer myself everywhere I go, right? I'm a customer and I know how I want to be treated. Just treat people the way you want to be treated. It's pretty easy.

Lori 5:33

You find that because you've been in customer service your whole life. When you are the customer, you're watching like and listening to everything they do. I find myself doing the same thing. And if someone does a good job, I'm like, you're great. You did such a good job.

Kami 5:52

Good for you.

Lori 5:54

Cause I know how hard it is.

Kami 5:56

Yes, yes. But everyone just wants to be heard and taken care of. And you know, there's been times honestly in dealing with customers, even dealing with florists over the years where they may have taken something wrong or they're upset about something that happened and I just tell myself, don't take it personally. It's not about you. They don't really know you. It's more they are just upset about something and they want to be heard. It's pretty simple really, if I had to sum up customer service, you guys already did, but I would like to agree with you on that.

Vonda 6:29

Well you put into action all the time, so I think that's important that you feel what we hit on last time. You know, it was right on. It has a lot to do with patients and to some degree, I do think that triplets give you a lot of patience or have given you a lot of patience.

Kami 6:45

You know, I actually thought of myself as a much more patient person before having children, they really can push your patience. I would say they have revealed many weaknesses in my amount of patience.

Lori 7:04

Vonda I can tell you that I have had phone calls from Kami after she has dropped her children off at school and she's like, listen, you know, can you pray with me? Can you talk with me? I was a really bad mom this morning. The thing about Kami is she has even been known to go and pull that child out of school in the middle of the day because she has felt like, I owe you an apology. I'm human. Let's work this out. I think that rolls over into her role with flower clique. She might make a mistake or we all make mistakes, but she always comes around and owns it and says, what? Here's what we're going to do moving forward. Do you remember that book? Vonda I think it was called objections. We read it once and it's actually a sales book, but one of the things it talks about that I thought about Kami is when you have a customer and something went wrong and you hang in there with them and you work through it, you actually come out on the other side closer to that person and the relationship is much healthier because they realize, Hey, they went above and beyond for me or they worked through a problem. There's an intimacy there that wasn't before the problem happened. I think Kami exemplifies that in her role because there's always an issue. It's not necessarily her fault, but there's always an issue on someone's website or you know, they don't have certain things and she walks through it with them and she, and they realize, golly, you know, she cares and she always tries to make it right.

Kami 8:47

That's true. You're in it with them. People want a partner. People want a friend and it's really true. Just that you care.

Vonda 8:53

And you're a problem solver .

Kami 8:54

I can't always fix it all. I can't always fix it, but I can hear him and work through it as much as possible. So it's true. You guys are making me feel real good about myself this morning.

Vonda 9:05

Well you should. So let's move on to websites. I heard you say you've been working for the last eight years with florist, so I don't have to ask you again, but I've been in the floral industry long before the internet and websites and in those days everyone used the yellow pages. See now I'm aging myself, sorry. Yellow pages and everybody picked up the phone and called the shop or they walked in the door. But that doesn't happen anymore. People are still calling the shops but you're getting orders off your website. Do you have any idea Kami, what percentage of people are , you know, maybe looking you up online and then calling? Do we have anything that would give us a good idea of what we're seeing?

Kami 9:51

You know, it varies across the country and it varies based on the time of the year. Around Valentine's day. I would say more orders are being placed online right than the norm. But I would say still the majority of a floral customers are calling in. And I know a lot of florists are agreeing with me right now. The majority of the orders are called in, I would say one to three out of every 10 orders are web orders, so 10 to 30% and thirties on the high side of orders coming in. But even though they're still choosing to call in, a lot of times they are, as you said, Vonda looking up the phone number online. Right? So they have to find, you have to have a listing, you have to have a Google listing. A Yelp listing you have to have a website? That's the number one thing people are finding or looking you up for is your phone number, your address, your shop hours. So you want to have those right up at the top. Also, and I know a lot of florists are going to agree with me on this. A lot of customers are using the website as almost like a menu. You know a menu of items. So even though they're choosing to call in their order, they're still using the website as a guide, as to see kind of what prices are, what they get for their money, you know, those kinds of things. So several do go ahead and place the order online, but the majority use the website but still call in the order and it can be a tool.

Vonda 11:20

I love that you refer to it as a menu. I guess I hadn't heard you say that before. I think that's really cool because it wouldn't make sense because they want to get an idea of what you have in the shop and that website is somewhat of a reflection of what they can get when they actually get you on the phone.

Kami 11:36

Yeah and I know a lot of florists would love that number to be higher. I did do a like informal poll before coming on, it changes over time cause think about how much people shop online now. I place orders all the time online. Just don't think, don't bat an eye but still for the florist it seems the local florist, a lot of times people prefer to have that phone call it seems, but use the website to get the number to see what the shop offers. But I did that informal poll and I had someone say, my number is 10% be about 10% of the orders I get are online. Somebody said 30 to 40% so it was across the country. It was different based on the size of the shop and the area they were in, but everyone said, I want that number to be more, can you help? Because it is, the website's such a helpful tool. I mean it's taking orders for them. It's saving time.

Lori 12:30

It's interesting because I, as you guys know, I love to send flowers to people. I have never ordered flowers on a website, but I will tell you I have never called the shop without looking at their website first and I don't know, maybe Vonda you were joking about your age. Maybe it is my age , like I don't trust, there's something I don't trust about it. I want to hear that person's voice. I want to tell them what I'm looking at and make sure that they can make it similar. I was sitting here thinking, I don't know what would change to make me click order now I order clothes on off of websites. I order a lot of other things, but I never have.

Vonda 13:22

I think it has something to do with you being the storyteller.

Lori 13:27

Yeah, that's probably true. I want to know the person that's making the arrangement.

Vonda 13:32

Yeah. Probably has something to do with it, if we refer back to that.

Lori 13:38

Maybe so. And once I hear their voice, if they're nice, if they're chatty, you know that trust and I'm like, okay, they're going to do a great job. And maybe if I wasn't in this industry, maybe I would order them online.

Vonda 13:52

I don't think you would, I doubt it . I don't think so, Lori.

Lori 13:58

So I'll have to, I'll work on that.

Vonda 14:01

You have worked on a lot of websites over the years, Kami, I'm guessing 700 or so. Does that seem about right?

Kami 14:09

Gosh, you know, I would say that probably is right. I've worked with several different platforms, so there's a lot of different hosts, right? Different hosts that hosts floral websites. So I've worked with a lot of different platforms and yeah, I'd say over eight years, 700 shops would be about right. That's a good estimate.

Vonda 14:29

Do you see any common denominators in shops that are having better success than others online?

Kami 14:35

I definitely think having a simple website that's easy to use is key. Um, I mentioned already having your address, phone number, shop hours easily found is important. But the simple homepage, that's the number one page that customers shop from. I mean it's kind of common sense, but I don't know if people realize that having an easy to use homepage, that's easy to click and buy . Easy to find what you're looking for. A lot of variety of arrangements, not only the colors and the type of arrangements, but also the pricing, you know, to show what they can get for 40 versus what they can get for 140.

Vonda 15:18

Well, the number one page that people buy from is the homepage, which is the one that as soon as they click flowers, et cetera, they land there. This is where they are.

Kami 15:28

Yeah. Most people , um, don't like too much product in front of them. They would prefer it to be simple, you know, show me what I can get for my money. So the homepage , they'll go to maybe two or three different pages on the website, but they're not going to sit there and browse and even some of the more successful websites will have limited inventory. The ones that don't do as well that have pages and pages, you know, you scroll and scroll and scroll, and it's just like products upon products. Those don't do as well as having a simple page. One page, you know, you click on birthday and it's got one page of products, maybe 20 products there instead of 60 is actually going to do better.

Lori 16:13

Too many voices. It stresses me out when there's too many voices.

Vonda 16:19

There's a book that Ellie got me for Christmas called the paradox of choice, and that's exactly what it talks about, how shoppers get paralyzed when they have too many choices. One, they can't make a decision two, once they make a decision, they're not confident with the decision. But that again, Lori, we're going to go into deep into a podcast because it's really interesting, really interesting how people are just paralyzed and not confident with decisions .

Lori 16:49

Well, Vonda, I'm going to need to order the book, right?

Vonda 16:52

Yes, we could do that.

Kami 16:54

You'll have to twist her arm. I do think too, I mean if you think about it, the florists that's in the florists favor, I mean you're fresh goods. It's not even physically possible to have that much product in your shop at one time. So to simplify the website is going to not only help your conversion rate, that's a big word, help your conversion rate on the website, but also help you be able to deliver on what people are ordering.

Lori 17:24

You know what I keep thinking of as you're talking about this and it's because you paralleled the website to a menu is the cheesecake factory.

Kami 17:33

I always use that as an example, its overwhelming.

Lori 17:37

It's, it is a novel and I have nothing against the cheesecake factory. I think it's great. It's always busy, but the few times I have gone, it is overwhelming. I never know what to order. There's too many, too many pages, but they're successful, so I don't know. I just can't stand it.

Kami 18:01

Yeah, I guess . I grew up in a family of restaurant owners, so I, I'm like, how do they do it? Yeah, it's crazy. I think of that all the time, actually. I even say you're not the cheesecake factory. You can't , do that.

Lori 18:16

That's what I kept picturing and my kids when they were young, you know, if there was a Birthday they always wanted to go to the cheesecake factor and I'm like, no, not that . Nope . Nope, Nope, Nope. And we'd go.

Vonda 18:28

I think that's why a lot of restaurants have a special of the day and there's three of them because people were like, let me take one of those because I don't want to go through this menu.

Lori 18:36

The whole point of going out to dinner so I don't have to stress and work, and now It's stress and work to pick it out. So I'm using that. Sounds great. Give me that.

Kami 18:46

So something that you guys, I've never told you this about me, but I absolutely hate reading a menu. I think what it comes down to is, I know I'm going to have to make a decision. Someone's going to approach me and I need it. So there's a little bit of pressure there, but also I've got people around me that I want to talk to. I'd rather talk to you then focus on a menu, so I'm just kinda like, I kind of do that thing where you spend your finger around and just wherever it lands, that's what you're going to get. I do that a lot. Or just my husband says, I am so predictable. I ordered the same thing, you know, at every place just because I don't want to sit there and read over a menu.

19:22

The other part, the deeper part of that Kami, as you said, you're an Enneagram two. You don't want to take up the time server. You don't want to ask them to come back later. You're like, well , whatever you want to bring me, I'll eat, that's what we love about you.

Kami 19:40

Something, Lori, you don't know, I do think this goes back to the Enneagram. You mentioned the trader Joe's that we were at yesterday, The store, it was giving me almost a s tomachache that the store was so busy and I felt like we were in the way of people. I was like, it's just the funniest thing. I feel like I g ot t o get out of the way and, and Matt tells me, he's like, honey, you were here first and y ou're shopping. L ike go in and get what you want and I 'm, but I'll just get out of the way and I won't get what I needed. And it was really bad yesterday b ecause that place was busy.

Lori 20:13

But here's what's funny about that, Vonda, she probably mentioned 10 times. It's so busy and I'm like, but it's trader Joe's. It's always busy, it's always always busy and I'm so used to it, but I could tell I'm done, I'm done. I'm like, no, we got to go down the other aisle cause I'm oblivious to running into people cause I'm all about finding a new experience or finding a new product. So it is, very interesting problem.

Kami 20:45

It's like , no, I don't want to put other people out.

Vonda 20:51

You want the best experience for other people and you're not as concerned about your experience .

Kami 20:56

Right, right. Yeah. See that's when you, the bitterness creeps in for a two , right?

Lori 21:03

That's our summer series, Another podcast, that's going to be our tagline from here on out. Every podcast we go, Oh, that's for another podcast.

Vonda 21:14

Exactly. So this could be a whole nother podcast itself. Kami, you've worked with shops , maybe one or two that had bad reviews online and you just actually written a blog about that. Can you share a few tips on responding to a bad review? Not that anybody's going to get one, but tips on responding to a bad review. What should they do?

Kami 21:38

So first you want to take a step back before you respond. I would say that's my biggest advice because I've seen a lot of times where someone is emotional, like they have their side of the story to tell and that never plays out well online for you to, you know, throw someone under the bus. I've heard you guys mentioned that last podcast. Just take a step back and be sure that you're thoughtful about your response. Never just take to the keyboard. Thats number one.

Vonda 22:07

So would it be like when mothers would tell us when we were younger, step back, take a deep breath and count to 10.

Kami 22:14

Huge. Take a deep breath and count to 10 and keep in mind before you type the future audience and potential customers that will be reading that so you're not just responding to that one person. You are putting yourself out there for future customers to read or potential shoppers to read your response. So keep them in mind before you respond as well. So take a step back. Keep in mind the future audience. It's always best to start off with an apology. I heard you guys say don't over apologize. As a matter of fact Lori and I were together yesterday, she said that she had someone that in her life that apologizes too much and I was like, am I that person? She was like, no .

Lori 23:03

Yesterday she was like, am I that person, I worry so much. I apologize.

Kami 23:08

No, but it is good to start off with an apology because whatever the bad review, they did have that experience and you are sorry. They had that experience. Hopefully our , sorry, they had that experience. Apologize. It's the truth in their eyes. So it's important to apologize on behalf of the shop for their bad experience. Fourth , I'm going to set this up in six steps. The fourth is to reiterate your overall goal as a shop owner. So here at flowers, et cetera. Our goal is customer satisfaction. Every time. Remember your , your audience is listening. Um, your potential shoppers are so for them to note this is important to us, that you are happy. That's actually very good to reiterate right there. Also address the issue or fix the problem if you can. If there was legitimacy in their problem , now would be a good time to thank them for their feedback. Let them know you're on it and you know, you'll give them a replacement design or whatever the issue is. Address the customer's issue. And then last, if it's a bad review, you could ask them to change that review. Especially if you resolve the problem, you can ask them to change it. Those are some of the most powerful reviews. When someone then will go on and make it a five star and respond, they took care of me and I'm so happy with this place, or remove it all together. It really does impact your online presence to have a negative review. It's sad, but true. Once you fix it, ask them if they'll remove that review or adjust that review

Vonda 24:42

and it's important to be monitoring these all the time because a timely response is really important. Correct.

Kami 24:49

Definitely. So take that deep breath, but you do want to respond in a timely manner. Yeah, you guys did address that and I thought that, and I thought yes, that's right. I mean you want them to know I care about customer satisfaction, I care about how your experiences and nothing says that like a timely response, but think it through before you do it. I've seen very bad responses and I've seen amazing responses. I've seen the gamut.

Vonda 25:14

and that's why I wanted to ask you about it. I know Laurie and I covered a little bit in our podcast, but nobody has covered it like you because you're right in the throw of it all the time.

Lori 25:24

I was just going to say, listening to you talk about that, it reminds me of how many calls I've received from shops when they get a negative review and they're so upset and it just, it just reminds me they so care about everything that goes out of their shop. You know? For the most part, you know , I would say 99.9% of the shop owners, they're truly broken hearted because they never want that experience to be a bad one. It's not just that this person wrote something and put it off out in public for the rest of the world to see like they're upset. I've never met a shop owner that doesn't want to make it right or to fix it.

Kami 26:11

It's hard not to take it personal.

Lori 26:13

Our time is up. Kami, first and foremost. Thank you. But secondly, the most important question of our podcast is coming up.

Kami 26:23

I knew it was coming.

Lori 26:24

You knew it was coming because you are a listener. You're a cliquer. What is one thing, giving your life right now, what is the one thing you're just loving?

Kami 26:42

So this is the one I've been battling. I've been in my mind thinking, okay, what is giving me life? And I, I could say there's, there's you know , products, there's books, there's all these things. If I'm truly being honest right now the thing that is giving me life is my children. And I just want to expound on that a little bit because I mentioned the triplet girls. They're 10 years old. It's not always been easy. As a matter of fact, the first two years of their life was a complete whirlwind. Um, I don't, I, I have spotty memories, I'm thankful for camera and video because I really don't remember a lot cause I wasn't getting a lot of sleep. Okay . And along the way people have been telling me enjoy it cause it goes so fast and it almost kinda like bothered me. Like yeah, right. You know, you could just in the thick of it, but right now they're at this sweet spot where they are, they're independent enough to where I'm kind of can take a few breaths and enjoy them. And they're also just pretty cool little people and I'm enjoying them. And I think I just want to kind of sit here for a while because people also unsolicited advice tell me that , um , it's gonna get real hard when they become teenage girls. So I'm trying to just savor and enjoy this period of time. And I am the last, I'm not going to say that like tomorrow won't change, but last couple of weeks I found myself enjoying them and they are giving me life. They really are those sweet little girls.

Lori 28:17

I love that. You know what I was just thinking of, this was a couple of years ago, I told you, I was like, Hey, there's this reality show and it's all about they have quintuplets or triplets or whatever and you're like, Nope, I'm not watching it I don't want to relive any of it.

Kami 28:30

No, I tried. My husband and I tried. There were, there were, there were like four or five little kids, we watched it and we almost felt that PTSD , yes . We both were like, this isn't enjoyable at all.

Lori 28:44

No, because you know, the behind the scenes know how hard it really was.

Kami 28:50

But it really is . It's getting, it's getting easier. I'm enjoying them. They're so different. Each one of them is so different and just they still are in that stage where they love their mom and dad, you know? They're pretty sweet.

Lori 29:05

That's good. That's beautiful. And I know your girls and I know Vonda's met him. They are, they're good girls. You and your husband have done a very good job. All right. Vonda, what's given you life?

Vonda 29:16

I've been thinking about that this morning and I'm like, I'm not sure there's anything special until I've been on here with the podcast watching the two of you. And that's what's giving me life right now. It just being here, the three of us, it's just our listeners don't know that we can see each other when we're recording the podcast. So that's pretty cool that we can kind of feel like in the same room and we're just enjoying each other's conversation. That's whats giving me life, Lori .

Lori 29:43

Oh, that makes me happy. You know, we're a virtual company, right? Which is, is a blessing and a curse. The bad part is we don't get to be face to face and like hug or, you know, just be in the same room. And I think that's what I was going to kind of talk about too . What's giving me life right now is the fact, those moments like yesterday when Kami and I met for a quick taco and then went to trader Joe's, even though we were working, it didn't feel like work. It was so fun to be able to be face to face , for those moments. And it's those little moments that keep us energized. Right. And it keeps us alive and excited for the next time we can all be together.

Vonda 30:28

Absolutely. We are so blessed. For sure. Well, thank you again, Kami, for joining us today. It was so nice to have you as our guest.

Kami 30:35

Thank you for having me, my first podcast.

Lori 30:35

Yes, and you could be a recurring guest . We always appreciate our listeners. We are so grateful every day. We do not take it for granted that you guys have a million choices yet you click on ours. So we're very appreciative. We hope you come back next week, and if you like us and want to know when we're are launching, go ahead and click that subscribe button and you will get notified every Tuesday when we go live. Have a great day, you guys.

Vonda 31:13

Yes. So please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change in your mindset can take you to new levels in your life and business.

Speaker 3 31:51

[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] .