Straightforward approach pays high dividends

I was delighted to serve as a major source for this trade article on InlandPress.org and was quoted extensively on the subject of how “Improving customer service starts at the top and pays huge dividends.”

No 'magic' – just commitment to serve
Wednesday, March 07, 2007 By Randy Craig | Editor, rcraig@inlandpress.org

Jon Louder, circulation director at the Mitchell (S.D.) Daily Republic, believes in the power of customer service. He shares a familiar axiom uttered by many over the years: A newspaper might boast Pulitzer Prize-winning news, but if the service is lousy, it will lose circulation. The converse is also true.

"You can have a mediocre paper, but if you have really great service, you'll probably gain circulation. This should magnify to everybody how important customer service is," he said.

Louder said the Republic is not perfect, but service has been good enough to keep the 12,000-circulation paper growing in a shrinking market. No magic bullets exist, he admitted. But years at the Republic have provided him some insight.

"There's no magic. Just focus," he said. "You have to focus on improving customer service every day. It's just getting employees and carriers to buy into it."

Louder's approach illustrates much about newspaper customer service. Everyone understands customer service is important. But how many realize its tremendous impact on readership and, potentially, circulation?

The most exhaustive examination of the effect of customer service on newspapers originated in the Impact Study of Newspaper Readership published by the Readership Institute in 2000. The study, which surveyed 37,000 consumers across the United States, determined that the greatest potential for improving newspaper readership came from raising customer service to the "exceptional" level.

Broken down, these service factors rank highest in terms of their impact on readership:

* condition and completeness of the paper
* quality of paper, ink and typesize
* when and how the paper is delivered
* accuracy of the bill
* cost of home delivery
* overall customer service

A newspaper's customer service strategy does not have to be complex to be effective. The primary element of any strategy is commitment. The initiative has to be ingrained in the culture.

Louder said customer service starts at the top with Publisher Noel Hamiel. Everyone at the Republic from Hamiel on down understands they are there to serve the customer. Of course, this attitude must be instilled in carriers, Louder said. District managers must clearly outline expectations.

"It may be time-consuming, but it's a necessity," he said.

Commitment must be to the right thing, warned Bob Davis, a circulation consultant based in Alpharetta, Ga. He said the overriding customer service mistake newspapers make is confusing efficiency with effectiveness.

Davis, whose clients have included Morris Communications properties, USA Today and the Miami Herald, said newspapers should not obsess over call time. Instead, they should concern themselves with metrics based on quality, not speed-metrics such as inbound saves rate, first-time resolution, service error followup or conversion to EZ Pay.

"There should be a drive toward having a quality conversation rather than a quick, get-them-off the phone conversation," he said. Commitment also involves training, Davis said. Customer service reps need to continually refine their skills with training and feedback. Motorola conducted an internal study that found that every dollar spent on supervisors coaching customer service reps returned $33 to the enterprise, according to Davis. At most newspapers, the employee charged with supervising customer service reps has as many as 22 tasks to perform any given day and spends only about 30 minutes engaged with the reps.

"Yet, (supervisors) readily admit that their No. 1 priority is coaching," Davis said. "But with all these other things they have to do, they end up with 22 different hats to wear."

One simple step trainers can take, Davis said, is to analyze how reps respond to a call. More than half of all customer service calls to newspapers are complaints. Yet, almost no matter what customers say, the first words they hear from a rep are "May I have your phone number please?" The first step must be to show empathy and issue an apology, Davis said.

"Start developing a rapport," he said. "We've become so task-oriented as opposed to people-oriented."

The payoff for coaching can prove tremendous. Davis said anywhere from 22 percent to 45 percent of a typical newspaper's circulation will call in to cancel over the course of a year. Newspapers should be able to recover 50 percent of these requests for cancellation, he said. The industry average for saving stops is around one in five, according to Newspaper Association of America. Part of the difficulty is determining the real cause for the cancellation. The top complaint is delivery problems. The No. 2 complaint is the familiar "no time to read." Davis said reps need to drill down past this excuse. He said in 53 percent of these cases there is a second reason prompting the cancellation. And in 80 percent of those cases, the second reason is the real reason the customers want to cancel.

Newspapers can tackle incremental changes in customer service like these or they can consider changes on a grander scale like the Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C.

After moving to a distributor-based system, the paper found that complaints dropped significantly, said Leon Barrineau, administrative manager in the circulation department. Instead of handling more than 500 carriers, the newspaper just had to deal with 20-plus distributors who hired their own delivery forces. Complaints wentto the distributors, not the paper, and carriers were divorced from bill collections.

With the lack of service calls coming in, the customer service department came to be overstaffed, Barrineau said. The paper decided to completely outsource its customer service.

As employees left through attrition, none were replaced. For those that remained, management found them other jobs at the paper. One employee left voluntarily.

The Post and Courier then contracted with the McClatchy Co.'s Customer Care Center (C3) located at The State, Columbia, S.C., to handle customer service calls.

Since the Post and Courier pays C3 on a per-call basis, the newspaper benefits from decreased call volume. To keep call volume down, the paper drives as many complaints and service requests as possible to www.charleston.net, its Web site. Customers can manage subscriptions here thanks to some basic tools found in the paper's circulation software from Data Sciences Inc. (DSI).

"The more Internet activity you have, the more automatic drafts that you do, the better customer service in the field, the better relationship distributors have with the customer-all of that plays into decreasing the phone volume," he said.

While the Post and Courier tops 95,000 circulation, Barrineau believes its strategy can work for both smaller and larger papers.

The online account access for subscribers is a "no-brainer" that can improve customer service at any paper, he said. But to substantially improve customer service, newspapers would likely need more people working more hours. Newspapers have to determine if they can generate enough business to justify the additional staffing, Barrineau said. If they cannot, then outsourcing might be an option if the transition is made with care.

"If you don't do it right, it can be gut-wrenching and can really upset your organization. But if you do it right and handle it tenderly, it can be a real success story," he said.

Outsourcing customer service remains a more complex solution than others. Louder at the Republic prefers attitudinal adjustments over anything else. Customer service is one of the things he can control at his paper. He can't control the news or what inserts will appear. But he can control the service customers receive.

"I've realized that in my years as a circulation employee, when it comes down to it the only thing you have complete control over is service," he said. "So that's what you focus on."

Contacts:
Jon Lauder, (605) 996-5514
Bob Davis, (678) 455-6812
Leon Barrineau, (843) 853-7678

Quick Tips: Customer Service Tips

* It might go without saying but when given a second chance, a newspaper must make good on its promise. Re-delivery must come through without mistakes.

* After a circulation problem has been resolved, offer the subscriber a coupon good for 5 days' credit the next time they renew their subscription. Include a personal note from the district manager or circulation manager. Show your concern.

* Don't be afraid to replace ineffective carriers.

* Always find out exactly what the problem or issue is with the subscriber. Always ask if there are other issues.

* Subscribers are more likely to respond favorably to a customer service rep if that rep shows a genuine interest in the subscriber. Ask the caller what his of her favorite section is. By tapping into the reader's emotional attachment to the paper, this question can shift the tone of the conversation toward the positive.

© 2007 Inland Press Association/Inland Press Foundation