Project success story: Dallas Morning News

Client:
The Dallas Morning News

Internal Brand:
Work Better Here

Duration:
12 months

Challenge: Leadership at The Dallas Morning News engaged Robert C. Davis and Associates (RCDA) to support its retention effort by establishing an outbound call center. This decision was based on the tremendous success that RCDA had demonstrated in helping other clients establish new retention centers. The retention reps make calls to subscribers who are deep in grace and present compelling offers of renewal and EZ Pay conversion.

Approach: RCDA assisted The Dallas Morning News in all aspects of the new retention center. The process began with the hiring of a retention supervisor and 14 part-time retention reps. RCDA helped write the recruiting materials as well as helped screen, interview, and ultimately hire the candidates for this position. Once the team was hired, RCDA conducted training using materials customized for The Dallas Morning News. In order to reinforce the training and ensure that a world class sales culture is developed, RCDA provided follow-up coaching to the retention team each week for a year. The primary goal of the project was to ramp collection results over a three month period until the team achieved and sustained an average of three collections per hour per rep.

Results: RCDA helped the Dallas Morning News convert 70,000 carrier-collects to office-pay. After this was accomplished, RCDA worked with the reps and supervisors on handling retention calls. Currently the newspaper is achieving 3.2 saves per rep per hour and collecting thousands of dollars each night.