It’s incredibly hard to review a bouquet of flowers that you neither chose nor received, but I shall do my best.
Ahead of Mother’s Day Tesco contacted me to ask if there was someone special I would like to send flowers to for Mother’s Day. The moment I saw the email I knew exactly who I wanted to receive some surprise flowers:
“Liz is the kind of person who always puts herself last. She is loving and supportive and constantly thinking of others. The kind of person who calls you even though she is crazy busy, because she knows you are finding life hard at the moment. She’s the kind of person you’d want your children to have living nearby when they go to University at the opposite end of the country to you. She’s the kind of mum you’d want as a Mother in Law for your married offspring. She’s the kind of mum you’d want to be sitting opposite you in a coffee shop, putting the world to rights, every day of the week, if she didn’t live so far away from you.”
I emailed a message to go with the flowers and tried very hard not to tell my friend about her surprise. I literally did not talk to her. For weeks. I couldn’t write about the campaign, or tweet about it in advance without spoiling the surprise.
Then, two days ahead of Mother’s Day itself, I got a call from my friend Liz.
“Did you send me flowers?” she said, clearly hedging her bets.
“I did.” I confirmed.
“Oh that’s good: I was a bit confused because the packaging said Tesco, the label said Asda and the card with them had your name on.” she replied.
And so I had to explain to my friend that the surprise flowers were part of a campaign, which sort of took the joy out of the surprise, for me at least, particularly as the price tag had been left on.
I was disappointed: for myself, for her, for Tesco. I have never bought Tesco *Finest flowers – bouquets are available in-store all year round- before and find it hard to recommend based on this experience.
I did email Tesco immediately to let them know about the mix up in case it happened to anyone else and received this reply: “I can’t understand why the card made any reference to Asda as both the card itself and the flowers are both Tesco products.”
I have to hope for me, for my friend, and for the #MumOfTheYear campaign that this was a blip. The flowers look beautiful.
I ask Liz what she thought of the flowers themselves, how long they lasted, the service, value for money etc, and she says:
I was confused by what happened. And embarrassed. The flowers had an Asda label, and I felt awful letting you know that it wasn’t quite right at my end. It was all a surreal experience.
We all know that these things happen, but still….
Disclosure: flowers were sent on my behalf to a friend by Tesco so that we could write this review. All opinions are honest.
Oh Lordy. Hard to put a positive spin on that one!
It was very tricky Merry. This is only my experience, though, and I may have been unlucky!