Project success story: The Miami Herald

Client:
The Miami Herald

Internal Brand:
Herald SAVES

Duration:
6 months

Challenge: The Miami Herald has had a dedicated retention team for several years. While this team was doing an adequate job of providing service to subscribers, reselling subscriptions, and renewing subscriptions for future service, leadership felt the department was underperforming its true potential. They decided to engage Robert C. Davis and Associates (RCDA) to create a training program and culture change that would bring about the consistent application of a robust sales model.

Approach: The Herald SAVES (Satisfy And Value Every Subscriber) project was designed to spark an intense focus on providing excellent customer service geared toward solving problems and increasing subscriber loyalty. The program emphasizes EZ Pay and long-term renewal opportunities. It also establishes an expectation of superior service on every call. For this project, RCDA authored customized training manuals for the retention reps and their supervisors. Since training material will quickly fade from memory if it is not consistently applied, RCDA has reinforced the training by providing consistent follow-up coaching to the reps and supervisors. RCDA has also helped initiate a culture change which redefines how the supervisors spend their time. Supervisors are now urged to spend half of each shift on the floor providing side-by-side coaching support to their reps.

Results: In less than six months, the Herald SAVES project has produced a 110-percent increase in collections per hour per rep (CPH). Prior to this project, reps were averaging 1.38 CPH. They now average about 2.90 CPH, and even greater gains are expected. A detailed ROI analysis that considers the increased commissions as well as the training and coaching costs associated with this project indicates that increasing CPH from 1.38 to 2.90 delivers an additional $1.1 million per year to the Herald's bottom line.