The Cole Papers, Customer Service, September 1995

The customer is rarely right when phoning a newspaper

ATLANTA -- It's become a proverbial industry joke to point out the lousy communication skills exhibited within newspaper companies.

And while the militant silence between Features and Business may be good for a few yucks -- though it shouldn't be -- the telephone maze installed at many newspapers surely drives away customers.

We all know the drill. Some obnoxious customer unreasonably calls up with, say, two questions, and expects answers to both.

The call goes to classified first, since that's the first thing the customer mentions. Then the customer wants to subscribe, or buy a display ad, or talk to a reporter, or something else obviously broached solely in an effort to annoy the classified department.

The caller is immediately transferred to someone who is no help, who transfers the call to someone who has at least heard of the subject at hand and may possibly know someone who could help, who transfers the call to someone who handles something just like that but not quite -- but does know who would handle that if he weren't on vacation. ...

On the bright side, this can be considered community relations -- the caller will get to talk to about half the people in the building before finding out the right person just went home for the day, so call again tomorrow.

Voice mail has, of course, brought the wonders of technology to the situation. Now, customers can be transferred to someone's voice mail, promptly and courteously, saving many steps:

"Hi! -- This is Fred. I'm doing something important right now and am much too busy to take your call. Leave a message after the beep, or press zero to be transferred back to the operator who transferred you here in the first place. Have a nice day!"

So, why is it we complain about circulation loss and ad shrinkage?

There's got to be a better way.

Here's a bright idea: How about we have the folks covering the telephones answer all of each customer's questions? That's the idea behind customer service center software.

At most places, the stumbling block to answering all the questions is that you have to have all the answers. And that's not the way most newspaper legacy computer systems were designed. Most legacy systems are silicon production lines designed to repetitively handle and deliver a single type of data.

That's the reason for all the phone transfers -- the classified folks don't have access to any of the other data. But our customers don't care. All they know is every call ends in The Death of A Thousand Transfers.

Customer service center software puts most or all of these data on every screen, allowing your customers to do all their business with one person. Several suppliers were demonstrating service center software at NEXPO '95:

Software Consulting Services of Nazareth, Pa., was showing its Integrated Newspaper setup, which allows access to the circulation, classified and advertising databases from a single terminal, according to Edward Houcek, SCS's vice president for sales.

SCS's software is based on Ctree, an SQL-compliant database. SQL (Structured Query Language) is an industry standard, which means your data won't be locked in some proprietary engine. It uses a file index to provide lightning-fast searches through enormous databases.

The SCS interface allows users to call other databases as pop-up windows over the main application. Users can enter orders, check billing status, place vacation stops or do anything else that's possible with regular access to any of the systems.

On the system side, the SCS software offers validity checking. This feature allows management to set valid field values to prevent a costly typo, such as a $7000 ad accidentally being sold for $00.07. There are also tools for checking and repairing the database and individual transactions.

The software has a report generator that allows a manager to keep track of all business handled by the system.

Customer integration is one of the goals of Edgil Associates' AdCentral software.

AdCentral, which runs on Sybase, an SQL-compliant database, allows access to circulation and other databases as well as advertising. Executives with Edgil, which is based in North Chelmsford, Mass., say they'll provide tools to access multiple databases for customer information.

Vision Data of Rensselaer, N.Y., was showing its Integrated Customer Services System software, which allows users to view display ad, classified and circulation data simultaneously.

Icss version 1.1 places all three databases on a single server. The databases can update each other as needed; for example, an address change placed in circulation will automatically update corresponding records in the classified and display ad databases as well.

The system will even check the circulation database, then prompt ad salespeople to suggest a new or renewed subscription to the caller, as appropriate.

Telecorp Systems of Roswell, Ga., had a slightly different idea. The goal is to get the customer's order into the database. Why not eliminate the middleman and let the customer deal with the database?

Before you get all panicky about broached security, you should know that Telecorp's System 6000 Interactive Voice Response software allows the customer to choose among approved choices only. And there's no choice for "Mark my display account with a $50,000 refund check due."

System 6000 allows customers to call in and handle delivery problems, choosing either redelivery or credit for missing papers. An alphanumeric pager option allows redelivery orders to be routed directly to a district manager.

Customers also can enter vacation starts and stops, inquire into account status, cancel a classified ad, and retrieve general information such as the newspaper's office hours or the names of editors for specific areas.

System 6000 also offers outbound dialing features, including verification of new subscription starts, collections, opinion polling and classified ad renewals.

Calls the system can't handle automatically are routed to customer service representatives -- who routinely may have little to do: Telecorp estimates System 6000 will handle 28 to 50 percent of all calls all by itself.

-- Christopher J. Feola

Edgil Associates Inc.,
(508) 251-9932;
Software Consulting Services,
(610) 837-8484;
Telecorp Systems Inc.,
(404) 587-0700;
Vision Data Equipment Corp.,
(518) 434-2193.

The customer is rarely right when phoning a newspaper

From THE COLE PAPERS, September 1995, Copyright © 1995, All Rights Reserved.