Writing a delivery address a florist can actually find

What the driver actually has to go on

A florist's driver sets out with a van of arrangements, a route planned that morning and an address on a slip. They have never been to this building, they cannot ask you what you meant, and every minute spent circling an estate makes the next stop late. Flowers that cannot be handed over go back to the shop after hours in a warm van, and have to be rebooked. Nearly every failed delivery traces back to one detail the sender knew and did not think to write down.

Flats, blocks and buildings with names

The street address gets the driver to the building. It does not get them to the door. In a block of flats the flat number is the difference between a delivery and a card through the letterbox, and on large developments the block or tower matters just as much, because several buildings can share one street number and one entrance road.

• Put the flat or apartment number first, followed by the floor if the building is tall.
• Give the building or development name exactly as it appears on the sign at the gate, not as residents shorten it.
• Name the block, tower or wing wherever there is more than one.
• If deliveries use a separate entrance, or the main door is on a different street, say so.

Why the postcode carries so much weight

Where postcodes are precise, they do most of the finding. In the United Kingdom a full postcode usually narrows a delivery to a single street, part of a street or one large address, and in the Netherlands a postcode together with a house number identifies a single address. Florists in countries like these plan their rounds by postcode, and satellite navigation drops its pin by it. That makes a mistyped postcode worse than a misspelt street: the driver is sent confidently to the wrong place, often a street of the same name in the next town.

Elsewhere the postcode does far less. India uses a six-digit Postal Index Number, or PIN, which identifies the area served by a delivering post office rather than a street. It is still worth including, because it confirms the district and rules out places with the same name, but on its own it leaves a whole neighbourhood to search. There, the rest of the address has to do the work.

Addresses that rely on landmarks and neighbourhood names

In much of the subcontinent street numbering is patchy or missing, and people find their way by the colony, sector or layout they live in and by the landmarks around it. An address written the way a local would give directions is not casual. It is the most accurate description there is. Write it from the large to the small, and include what a neighbour would mention.

• The neighbourhood, colony, sector or layout name, and the nearest main road or cross road.
• A landmark that strangers can see and that still exists, such as a temple, school, bank branch or petrol pump, with opposite, behind or next lane to as needed. A shop that closed last season, or a name only the family uses, sends the driver looking for nothing.
• The house or building name, since many homes are known by name rather than number.
• The PIN, to confirm the district.

The recipient's phone number is the most useful thing you can add

No address, however careful, beats a driver being able to ring the person inside. A short call fixes a missing flat number, a locked gate, a recipient who has popped next door, or a landmark that turns out to have two candidates.

Write the number in international form: a plus sign, the country code, then the local number, usually without the leading zero used for domestic calls. The code is +91 for India and +44 for the United Kingdom. Numbers written to ITU-T Recommendation E.164 always begin with that country code, so they cannot be mistaken for a local number somewhere else.

If the flowers are a surprise, say so in the note. Most florists will only ring when they cannot find the door, and will ask for the recipient by name without saying why.

Delivery notes that genuinely help

A delivery note is for the driver, not the recipient, so write it as instructions. A good note answers a question the driver would otherwise have to phone about; one that repeats the address or says please be careful answers nothing.

• Gate and door codes, and whether the code is for the pedestrian gate or the car entrance.
• Offices: the company name, the floor, and whether deliveries go to a reception desk or a post room. Say if the office is closed at weekends, and do not book a weekend delivery there.
• Hospitals: the patient's full name, the ward name and a bed number if you know it. Patients move between wards, and many hospitals do not allow flowers in intensive care or on some other wards, so check with the ward first.
• Gated communities and housing societies: the security desk often signs for flowers, so name the recipient clearly and include their phone number.
• A safe place to leave them if nobody answers, out of direct sun and away from pets.

Names that are spelled more than one way

The name on the order is how the driver confirms the right door, and how a reception desk or security guard finds the right person. Names from Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Tamil or Urdu can be written in the Latin script in several ways, and families, schools and passport offices have not always settled on the same one. Formal systems exist, and the Library of Congress publishes ALA-LC romanization tables for exactly this job, but everyday spellings rarely follow them.

Use the spelling the recipient uses themselves, on a message, a card or an email signature, rather than the one you would choose. If a building or hospital might know them by another version, add it to the note. In some families the family name comes first, and a married name may not match the one on the doorbell, so give both when there is any doubt.