No real delivery attempt and customer service that only sends copy-paste replies
In short: a delivery attempt was recorded even though the recipient was at home and no one rang the doorbell or contacted her. Customer service then repeatedly sent copy-paste replies and eventually stopped responding.
I ordered a bouquet through Blumenshop.de for delivery in Berlin while I live in Finland. The flowers were meant to be delivered directly to the recipient in Berlin.
According to the shipment tracking, a delivery attempt was registered and marked as unsuccessful. However, the recipient was at home during the indicated delivery window. No one rang the doorbell, no one knocked, and there was no phone call or message.
Despite this, I received an email stating that the delivery had failed and that the bouquet had been redirected to a pickup location.
What made the situation even worse is that the bouquet could not even be collected that same day. The pickup location only received it the following day, which means the flowers remained out of water for a prolonged period. For perishable goods like flowers this is obviously a serious problem.
I contacted customer service to clarify what had happened and asked several very specific questions. Instead of addressing the situation, I mostly received copy-paste responses repeating delivery terms that had nothing to do with what actually happened. My questions were simply not answered.
Another concerning point is the handling of personal information. During the order process the shop collects the recipient’s personal data, including the phone number. However, I was told that this number cannot be shared with the courier and will also not be used to contact the recipient regarding the delivery. When I asked why this personal information is collected at all and how it is actually used, I did not receive any explanation. This raises an obvious question about why such personal data is requested if it apparently cannot be used for delivery purposes.
Eventually customer service stopped responding entirely. Instead of resolving the issue or explaining the recorded delivery attempt, I later received an automated survey asking whether the delivery had been successful.
For transparency, I also shared my experience on Trustpilot. The response from the company there was again a generic copy-paste of delivery terms that did not address the actual issue at all. A screenshot of this response is attached.
I have ordered flowers online many times and in several different countries, and I have never experienced a situation handled this poorly. The delivery issue itself was already problematic, but the dismissive and template-style responses from customer service made the experience significantly worse.