HORTSCIENCE 25(3):356-358. 1990. quality product. The first research objective was to identify Supplier Services and Their and describe the types of services performed among floral suppliers (wholesale florists, Importance to Floral Retailers in the wholesale growers, and shippers) for their customers (florists and mass marketers), with a second objective to quantify the level of Midwestern importance florists and mass marketers Thomas L. Prince1, Harry K. Tayama2, and John R. Grabner, Jr.3 place on the services provided by their sup- pliers. Development of this in- Department of , Ohio Agricultural Research and formation may allow suppliers to focus their Development Center, The Ohio State , Columbus, OH 43210 programs on activities considered most Additional index words. , mass market, wholesale florist, important by their customers, thereby im- proving distribution effectiveness. Abstract. Survey analysis of retail florists in the midwestern United States and floral Telephone and personal interviews with mass marketers, nationally, identified 18 major services provided by floral suppliers selected members of the production, ship- for their retail customers and quantified the retailers’ perceived importance of the ping, , and retailing segments of services. Product quality maintenance, order/delivery reliability, product availability, the were used to obtain response to problems, and personnel courtesy were rated by retailers as the five most information on the types of service activities important services provided by floral suppliers. Retail florists viewed the importance performed in floral distribution (Prince, 1989). of the 18 services with primary and secondary concerns, whereas mass marketers Also, group discussions relative to customer largely viewed the services as equally important. Mass marketers perceived services service were conducted with industry rep- related to product marketing, packaging, labeling, and communication/order infor- resentatives throughout the United States. mation services with greater importance than retail florists. The service profiles provide These groups met while attending the 1986 floral suppliers with market information to develop more effective service programs and 1987 Ohio Florist Short Course and the targeted for specific customer segments. 1987 Wholesale Florists and Florist Sup- pliers of America Management Institute in The U.S. economy is experiencing a tran- vironment led to the initiation of this study Columbus, Ohio. The next step was the de- sition from production orientation to service to examine customer service in the floral in- velopment of a structured questionnaire and (Cowell, 1984). With today’s highly com- dustry. the collection of survey data from random petitive and international business climate, Services within the floricultural channels samples of retail florists and floral mass mar- customer service has seen a rebirth in interest of distribution represent a major share of ket operations obtained from membership lists and concern in American businesses (Sha- marketing costs among producers, whole- of Florists’ Transworld Delivery, the Society piro, 1984; Sharman, 1984; LaLonde et al., salers, and retailers (Goodrich, 1980; Sulli- of American Florists, Florafax Association 1988). Awareness of service and its impor- van et al., 1980). Customer service comprises, International, and the Produce Marketing tance in the current and future economic en- in addition to the product, activities provided Association. by a supplier to a customer with the purpose Questionnaires were pretested and modi- of gaining repeat (Hopkins and Bailey, fied before their distribution to managers of Received for publication 3 Mar. 1989. Salaries 1970). Customer service forms the interface retail florist businesses in 12 midwestem states and research support provided by state and federal between sellers and buyers in the distribution (including Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, funds appropriated to the Ohio Agricultural Re- channel and forms the basis for market trans- and the states to their north) and floral buyers search and Development Center, The Ohio State actions and distribution strategy (LaLonde, of floral mass market operations, nationally, Univ. Approved for publication as manuscript no. 1985). However, effective communication during May through July 1988. Seven-point 40-89 of the Ohio Agricultural Research and De- of desired services among growers, shippers, rating scales were used in the questionnaire velopment Center, Wooster, OH 44691. The cost wholesalers, and floral retailers is sometimes format to reduce the burden on respondents of this paper was defrayed in part by lacking, and this lack often results in less and to minimize random variation in re- the payment of page charges. Under postal regu- than ideal service performance (Prince, 1985a, sponses (Cox, 1980). lations, this paper therefore must be hereby marked advertsement solely to indicate this fact. 1985b). The end result is that floral suppliers A total of 511 surveys were returned from 1Postdoctoral Fellow. may lose their competitive position in the the retail florist sample, which represented a 2Professor of Horticulture. global marketplace, not only because of in- 25% response rate; 502 surveys were fully 3Associate Professor, Faculty of Marketing, Col- ferior product quality, but also because they completed and usable for statistical analysis. lege of Business, The Ohio State University, 1775 fail to offer the required services or provide Thirty-eight surveys were returned from the College Rd., Columbus, OH 43210. the excellence in service associated with a mass market sample, resulting in a 29% re-

356 HORTSCIENCE, VOL. 25(3), MARCH 1990 Table 1. Description of 18 components of customer service provided by floral suppliers to retail been in business between 6 and 10 years; florists and floral mass market operations. 32% between 11 and 30 years; 19% between 31 and 50 years; and another 19% had flor- iculture business experience in excess of 50 years. These statistics suggested that the sur- vey respondents generally reflected charac- teristics of the retail floral industry at large. The research identified and described 18 components of customer service between supplier and retailer in floral distribution (Table 1). These components revealed the broad scope of customer services performed within the floral industry, as they spanned all elements of the marketing mix, including issues of product, price, promotion, physical distribution of floral products, and business management. This finding suggests that the development of an effective customer ser- vice program for suppliers requires input from all facets of the business and should not fo- cus solely on orders, deliveries, and com- plaint handling. Service importance ratings. Mean impor- tance ratings aggregated across both samples for the 18 customer service components are provided in Table 2. These ratings are listed in order of greatest to least importance, as perceived by the retailer, and indicate the level of importance placed by retail cus- tomers on each component when selecting or evaluating floral suppliers. Suppliers’ product quality maintenance, order/delivery reliability, product availability, response to problems, and personnel courtesy were found to be the five most important customer ser- vice components. Components of lesser im- portance included supplier accessibility, post- sale support/guarantees, delivery speed, product knowledge, and product pricing/dis- counts. Of least importance were service components comprising policy, prod- uct packaging, product labeling, promo- tional/marketing support, and box standardization. These services were rated lower, but all service components, except box standardization, achieved a mean rating >4.0, the midpoint of the importance scale. The importance ratings indicated that quality of product and the maintenance of sponse rate; all were fully completed and spective populations allowed the general ap- product quality by suppliers is the top con- usable for statistical analysis. Analysis using plication of these survey results to the floral cern of retailers in the floriculture industry. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (Cronbach, mass market and Midwestern retail florist However, the high ratings of the other serv- 1951) indicated that questionnaire items rel- populations at large. ices indicated that distribution, marketing, ative to service achieved acceptable reliabil- Survey respondent characteristics. Busi- and personnel services have an important role ity. Data analysis comprised frequency ness characteristics of the survey respon- in the overall product/service offerings of distributions relative to business character- dents were obtained to determine the floral suppliers. In particular, services rela- istics of respondents and mean comparisons representative nature of the respondents rel- tive to order/delivery reliability, product of service importance ratings between the two ative to the industry. Ninety percent of the availability, response to problems, personnel respondent groups. survey respondents described their major courtesy, accessibility, post-sale support, Survey bias because of nonrespondents was business activity as retail florists, 2% as re- delivery speed, and product knowledge assessed through a statistical comparison of tail growers, 7% as floral mass marketers, achieved mean importance ratings >6 on a survey responses from early and late respon- and 1% as other types of floral-related busi- 7-point importance scale. dents of the survey, and through a random nesses, including shops and Segmented service importance ratings. In telephone survey sampling of nonrespon- centers. About 55% of the respondents av- general, the mass market sample rated most dents (Miller and Smith, 1983). Results of eraged under $250,000 in gross annual sales; service components with the same level of both tests indicated that nonresponse bias was 24% had annual sales between $250,000 and importance, or slightly higher in importance, not a serious threat to the validity of the sur- $500,000; 12% between $500,000 and $1 than the retail florist sample, with nine of vey research. Thus, the survey respondents million; and 9% had annual sales of floral the 18 components registering a significantly represented the business characteristics, products in excess of $1 million. Fourteen higher mean importance score. The compo- viewpoints, perceptions, and opinions of the percent of the respondents were relatively nents relative to product availability, product general population surveyed. Furthermore, new entrants into the floriculture business, knowledge, communications/order informa- the random sampling of firms from their re- being in business 5 years or less; 16% had tion, order/delivery flexibility, relationships/

HORTSCIENCE, VOL. 25(3), MARCH 1990 357 Table 2. Mean importance ratings for 18 customer service components overall and for retail florist through the identification of customers’ ser- z (RF) and mass market (MM) samples. vice needs. In a broader perspective, the customer ser- vice philosophy can permeate beyond the supplier-retailer relationships researched in this study to include all members throughout the floral distribution channels, from the producer of seeds, , explants, and cut- tings to the ultimate consumer. Through open lines of communication between buyers and sellers, a consensus of service strategy throughout the channels can be developed, providing for a continuous value-added process throughout the supply chain. The end result is a more valuable product/service of- fering for the ultimate consumer and in- creased consumer satisfaction, possibly leading to an expansion in the market for floral products and services.

‘Importance of service when selecting a floral supplier: 1 = unimportant, 7 = very important; n (RF) Literature Cited = 502. n (MM) = 38. Significant differences between RF and MM by t test at P = 0.05 (*) and Cowell, D.W. 1984. The marketing of services. 0.01 (**). CAM Found., London. Cox, E. 1980. The optimal number of response alternatives for a scale: A review. J. Marketing Res. 17:407-422. contracts, product packaging, product label- portance. Thus, retail florists perceived cus- Cronbach, L.J. 1951. Coefficient alpha and the ing, promotional/marketing support, and box tomer service with primary and secondary internal structure of tests. Psychometrika 16:297- standardization were rated higher in impor- concerns, but mass marketers had a mono- 334. tance by the mass market sample than by the lithic perception of service and viewed its Goodrich, D.C., Jr. 1980. Floral marketing. Chain retail florist sample. Only one component, components as largely being equally high in Store Publ., New York. box standardization, was rated lower than importance. Hopkins, D.S. and E.L. Bailey. 1970. Customer 5.5 on the 7-point importance scale for the Although the 18 service components de- service: A progress report. The Conference mass market group. fine the major activities comprising a cus- Board, New York. LaLonde, B.J. 1985. Customer service, p. 235- Ranking the mean importance ratings for tomer service program, a supplier’s service 256. In: J.F. Robeson (ed.). The distribution the service components also sets apart the program might not be limited to these serv- handbook. Natl. Council for Physical Distrib. florist and mass market groups. The top four ices. The dynamics of the economic and Mgt. The Free Press, New York: services are ranked similar in importance by market environment surrounding floricul- LaLonde, B.J., M.C. Cooner. and T.G. Noor- the two groups, but the mass market group tural businesses require continuous monitor- dewier. 1988. Customer’ service: A manage- ranked communications/order information as ing of customers’ needs and identification of ment perspective. Council of Logistics Mgt., the fifth most important service, while flo- new services to satisfy those needs. In ad- Oak Brook, Ill. rists ranked it eleventh. These rankings sug- dition, suppliers must ascertain relative costs Miller, L.E. and K.L. Smith. 1983. Handling non- gest that mass marketers place greater and benefits associated with a given cus- response issues. J. Ext. Sept./Oct.:45-50. Prince, T.L. 1985a. The performance of floral importance on supplier communication/in- tomer service program and evaluate its ef- wholesalers. Florists’ Rev. 31 Jan.:26-29. formation services than do retail florists. fectiveness. Prince, T.L. 1985b. The shortest distance? Flo- The importance ratings of the two groups For floral suppliers, this research has de- rists’ Rev. 14 Mar.:45-53. also suggests a distinction in the way both veloped the foundation for adopting a cus- Prince, T.L. 1989. Customer service of floricul- groups view customer service. The retail flo- tomer service philosophy within the floral ture suppliers in the Midwestern floral distri- rists rated service components related to the industry. This service philosophy comprises bution channels: Its relationship to retailer physical distribution of the as of pri- a company-wide belief, practice, and policy satisfaction and purchasing intention. PhD Diss., mary importance, while services related to to consistently satisfy customers. The seg- The Ohio State Univ., Columbus. marketing, labeling, boxing, and communi- mented service profiles may assist suppliers Shapiro, R.D. 1984. Get leverage from logistics. Harvard Business Rev. 62(3):119-126. cation were of lesser importance. The mass in developing more effective service pro- Sharman, G. 1984. The rediscovery of logistics. market group viewed physical distribution grams targeted for the needs of retail florists Harvard Business Rev. 62(5):71-79. services with high importance and also viewed and mass marketers. Floral suppliers can fo- Sullivan, G.H., J.L. Robertson, and G.L. Staby. marketing and communication aspects of cus their programs on the most salient serv- 1980. Management for retail florists. W.H. customer service with a similar level of im- ices and effectively achieve their service goals Freeman, San Francisco.

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