Busy Retail Florist - Belfast, Northern Ireland
Memento Floral Designs
"Our previous system no longer met the needs of our growing business [...] after extensive comparisons we felt that Digital Florists ticked every box for us."
Gary Connolly
Managing Director, Memento Floral Designs
Memento Floral Designs is a busy florist on Belfast's Ormeau Road. After a decade on his previous software, Gary knew it was time for a change. Since switching to Digital Florists, route planning that used to take 2-3 hours per evening now takes 10 minutes, peak day order delegation went from 'order bingo' at 8pm to a 20-minute job, and real-time analytics replaced hours of Excel cleanup.
10 min
Route Planning
Down from 2-3 hours per evening
20 min
Peak Day Delegation
Down from hours of order bingo
10 yrs
On Previous System
Before switching to Digital Florists
Real-time
Analytics
Replacing hours of Excel work
The Challenges
Delivery routing challenges
'You'd nearly be quicker giving your driver a map and a compass. One of my few jobs on peak evenings was the massive headache of organising and planning routes with a third-party tool, dragging stops one by one. I would have genuinely spent 2-3 hours each evening on it.'
Reporting limitations
'The reporting output needed a lot of manual work before it was usable for business decisions. We found it difficult to get the consistent, real-time data we needed to make informed choices.'
Support when we needed it
'We needed support availability that matched our operating hours, including weekends and peak days. When things went wrong on a busy Saturday, we needed someone there.'
Keeping pace with our needs
'Over time, our needs evolved faster than the platform could keep up. Features we needed weren't always available in the timeframe we needed them. It felt like we were outgrowing the system.'
The Results
Route Planning
Before
2-3 hours per evening
After
10 minutes
Peak Day Delegation
Before
Hours of order bingo
After
20 minutes
Analytics
Before
Hours of Excel cleanup
After
Real-time dashboards
In Gary Connolly's Words
The full interview
Q: Can you tell us about your business and the primary challenges you were facing before using Digital Florists?
We are a very busy florist on the Ormeau Road in Belfast. Our previous system no longer met the needs of our growing business. We found it slow for our needs, difficult to customise, and the user experience felt dated. The delivery module didn't work the way we needed it to and the reporting output needed so much manual work that we couldn't rely on it for business decisions.
Q: How were these challenges impacting your business operations?
I'm trying to run a smooth, process-led business efficiently and the key to that is software that works and is agile enough to meet the needs of your business. Our previous system wasn't giving us that. I searched high and low for alternatives and even considered building something myself — you got there first.
Q: What were your primary goals in seeking a software solution?
We spent a long time looking for alternative platforms and after extensive comparisons we felt that Digital Florists ticked every box for us. It is user-friendly, the onboarding and migration were straightforward, the online training material is easy to follow, and it does not over-complicate a simple order process. It meets the demands of all aspects of our business needs.
Q: Which features of our software were most beneficial in addressing your challenges?
Routing was the big one. On the last two peak days I felt very redundant — one of my few jobs on peak evenings was the massive headache of organising and planning routes with a third-party tool, dragging stops one by one. With Digital Florists, routes were done in 10 minutes. I actually caught up on some Netflix instead.
Q: Were there any unique or innovative ways you used Digital Florists?
We are working on Tasks at the minute and it will save us paying for Monday.com to manage projects. The analytics have been a big one too - real-time performance views, ability to measure against previous years, revenue and product performance at the click of a button. Previously this was multiple Excel downloads, hours spent cleaning the data, organising into a useable structure, then creating pivot tables - and by the time I was done it was already out of date.
Q: Can you share some quantifiable results since using our software?
Order delegation on peak days used to involve playing 'order bingo' at 8pm - going through orders line by line to check if any printed worksheets were missing. There were always orders missing, so the team ended up working late. This year, I filtered by product, it was done in 20 minutes, and the team used the app to manage their workload. No bingo.
Q: How has the customer experience changed since implementing Digital Florists?
Delivery tracking and customer updates in real-time have made a big difference. There has been a real reduction in those 'when can I expect my order?' calls. We can also monitor driver performance and see where they are in real-time without having to text, call, or have them post updates to a WhatsApp group - which was adding additional paid time to each delivery.
Q: How was the setup and onboarding experience?
At the time, just going on previous experiences, it felt a bit too easy and relaxed and I was slightly concerned that perhaps there wasn't a complete understanding of our entire business operations and the sheer reliability we had on our previous system for managing day-to-day workload.
'Delivery routes — I would have genuinely spent 2-3 hours each evening on peak days organising routes and paying for a third-party platform to optimise them. Now it takes 10 minutes.'Gary Connolly