There were fewer mishaps with roses this time, but the phones for public radio's fundraiser were often busy
Originally published in Current, Feb. 26, 1996
By Bradley MarshallFor the Love of Public Radio, the national fundraiser on Feb. 14, came up smelling more like a rose in its second year after something of a Valentine's Day massacre in 1995.
"We went from a 15 percent error rate last year to less than 5 percent this year, which is better than average for the floral industry on Valentine's Day,'' said NPR research chief John Sutton, who runs the program.
The 57 participating stations netted $240,000--a dollars-per-station increase of about 20 percent, though many of last year's stations dropped out, cutting the total sales volume in half. For every $80 pledge, the listener gets a half-dozen roses, stations get $40, and most of the other $40 goes to the florists.
For 1996, the project switched to a new flower company with a different communications technology and pricing structure. Instead of having FTD handle the national flower orders, NPR went to Redbook Florist Services of Paradould, Ark. Sutton termed Redbook's service "exceptional.''
"Now we know it can work,'' said Sutton, "and the things that went wrong primarily didn't have a negative impact on the listener's relations with the stations, although I'm sure we lost some repeat business.''
"We got a total of 5,770 calls,'' he said. "There have been two problem areas: one market where we got much more than anticipated, so there have been some late deliveries, and some problems getting through on the phone. People were put on hold longer than we would have liked.'' NPR will work with stations to evaluate this year's fundraiser.
"We may have a similar promotion for Mother's Day and other holidays throughout the year before next Valentine's Day.''
Beth Schmucker, of WCPN in Cleveland, said the promotion raised about $12,000, of which the station will receive half, and there were no complaints. "We're really encouraged, because we had an increase in the number of orders at the higher level,'' she said.
Bridget Parks, development director of KUOP in Stockton, Calif., said that almost 25 percent of last year's callers either didn't get what they wanted or got nothing at all. This year, she received only two complaints, or less than 1 percent of orders. But the results weren't entirely rosy: Parks said that on the Monday and Tuesday prior to Valentine's Day, listeners ran into busy signals and reported being on hold for five to ten minutes. The promotion grossed $11,300.
Miami was a trouble spot. Florists in the area were unable to keep up with demand, says Pat Combine, development director at WLRN, and callers had trouble getting through to the 800 number. WLRN will keep half of the $47,000 in pledges. Combine expects to do twice as well next year if the calling center can handle more calls.
Mel Baer, of KPLU in Tacoma, Wash., was critical of last year's "higher-than-tolerable'' fulfillment problems, but was pleased to get only a handful of complaints this year, as of the morning after Valentine's Day. "Our results are about 50 percent off from last year in terms of our net; we expected it to be off, because we lost a lot of repeat business, and last year coincided with the congressional hearings,'' which brought out a lot of support.
Baer tossed a bouquet to the project's national coordinator. "I think John Sutton did a much better job this year in maintaining contact with stations, and I applaud his effort in that regard, and we'll have to see when the dust settles if we still have a viable fundraising promotion for next year.''
WBHM in Birmingham, Ala., "did wonderful,'' said Sylvia Carson. "We got 115 pledges and $4,700, and only three complaints, none of which were irate and all of which were solved locally. Last year we had about 230 pledges, and about 20 complaints.''
At KWMU in St. Louis, 4,638 roses were delivered, along with 442 boxes of chocolates, and 105 gift certificates for a bed & breakfast. Proceeds were up 37 percent over last year. "This is a fundraiser that grows in popularity every year,'' said Patricia Wente-Bennett, g.m. For $40, listeners could send a half-pound box of chocolates; for $75, a half-dozen roses; for $200, a night in a B&B.
Chocolates were the whole menu at West Virginia Public Radio. "Before the roses promotion started, we established a long-term partnership with a chocolate firm in Hall, W.Va.,'' says Jeanne Fisher of WVPR. "They sell the chocolate wholesale for $15 per one-pound box and donate any shipping charges. In four days this year, we sold 200 one-pounders.'' Sales doubled over last year.
WKSU in Kent, Ohio, originated the forerunner of the Valentine's Day promotion 18 years ago under the name "For the love of music,'' according to General Manager John Perry. The station asked people to contribute the price of a record for WKSU's record library. "Then we decided to broaden the appeal with something people were going to do anyway; why not send flowers and support public radio at the same time?''
Perry says project coordinators helped improve the results by introducing principles of Total Quality Management (TQM) into the fundraiser.
He was dissatisfied with the order takers' delays in answering the phones. "They underestimated the demand, even with my warnings,'' said Perry. "Some people were on hold much too long; some people probably gave up in frustration.''
Adapted from an earlier article in Current, Jan. 29, 1996
Last February's fundraiser netted about $500,000, but also wreaked havoc when some florists failed to deliver the roses that donors ordered as premiums.
About 100 stations participated in last year's Valentine's Day fundraiser, which is jointly organized by NPR, WKSU (Kent, Ohio) and Alexander's Flowers in Cleveland. The number is smaller this year because "some stations wanted to wait a year and see how this goes,'' says NPR Research Director John Sutton.
Of the 13,000 orders placed for roses in last year's fundraiser, 1,500 to 2,000 were problematic, Sutton says. The mistakes varied--six roses in lieu of a dozen, mixed bouquets in lieu of roses, poor quality flowers, or none at all. Some mistakes involved orders by stations' major donors.
The problems were due in part to an unexpected high demand for roses nationwide, according to those involved. The project vendor, FTD, eventually apologized for its role in the failures and donated $25,000 to NPR. The network passed on most of the gift to stations that lost pledges.
This year's vendor, Redbook, is charging higher prices than FTD did, to give florists more of an incentive to fulfill orders. Says Sutton: "Last year, florists were accepting orders and not filling them because they weren't happy with the profit margin.'' Redbook's price hikes raise the price of a half-dozen roses from $60 to $80; a dozen remains at $120. Floral bouquets will be available for a $60 pledge. FTD wanted to raise costs even more, which is the main reason NPR didn't contract with the company a second time, Sutton says. Stations will get 50 percent of sales.
Redbook has communications technology better suited to the task than did FTD, which last year resorted to processing phone orders by hand when its mainframe computer crashed, according to Sutton. Some orders were lost as a result.
Sutton also says communications will be better than last year's. Representatives from the sponsoring organizations will be at the telemarketing site, and NPR's four new customer service reps, plus Sutton and his assistant Kay Marshall, will be on hand at NPR to answer station questions.
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