Farewell to the Daily Newspaper

My household subscribes to four daily newspapers. No, I'm not talking about on-line, iPad or Kindle subscriptions. These are the conventional paper versions.

            Maybe I am old-fashioned, but yes, I still like to read newspapers in the flesh, so to speak, ink on paper, with the pages spread out on my breakfast table and a mug of coffee within reach.

            I'm afraid, however, that our newspaper delivery service is forcing me to change my morning reading habits and switch to the electronic versions. That’s not to say I’m not current with technology, unable or unwilling to get my news on-line. It’s just that this old habit of mine—born as a one-time newspaper reporter and editor—is dying hard. The habit’s demise, however, is being aided and abetted by those who can least afford the loss of the business of such a faithful patron.

            A single service delivers all the morning papers here, which for us includes the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Herald and Boston Globe.

            I'm an early riser, usually up and about by 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. I like to have my newspapers shortly thereafter. For many years, I relied on a conscientious carrier who rarely failed to put the papers on my front porch before 5. Often, the thump of the papers woke me.

            Unfortunately, the guy who's been delivering my papers the past year or so can't seem to get them on my porch (or anywhere near it) before 6:30—sometimes as late as 7:00 or even 7:30.

            And the convenient porch deliveries, which I have tried to encourage via monthly cash tips, often fall short. So I am forced to pad down the driveway in slippered feet to retrieve the papers.

            While I await my tardy newsprint, I peruse said papers’ offerings on-line with my laptop computer. It has gotten so common lately and I have become so accustomed to the on-line versions that by the time the papers are delivered, I will have already read my favorite columnists and the main news of the day. The web even enables me to finish the daily crossword puzzles. So when the hard copies arrive, they often go straight to the recycling bin unopened as I head off to start my day.

            I'm sure it's not their intention, but what the delivery service is doing is helping increase my comfort level with reading their products on-line and alienating me from the print versions. They are furthering that by continually bumping up their prices of the delivered products. I see the day coming soon when cancellation of all newspaper deliveries will be an easy decision.

            I hate to do it, but it seems inevitable. The Times will likely go first—not only because it is the most expensive of the four, but also because it long ago ceased being “the paper of record,” instead becoming the most partisan voice in American news media, with all the news fit to spin and slant. The Wall Street Journal is my favorite of the four. But as a long-time on-line subscriber, that will likely be the easiest print version to forego.

            In truth, this blog entry started life as a letter to the news delivery service as an attempt to get them to improve their service. However, I could not find any means of contacting them. They remain stubbornly anonymous and unreachable. The proffered phone number leads to a frustrating daisy chain of pre-recorded choices—but no human being—and there is no available street address for snail mail. Instead, I vent here.

            It does seem ironic in the midst of a weak economy that a business would apparently be going out of its way to provide poor service and not give its customers a way to help them correct that, especially in light of the emerging technologies that are making their product increasingly irrelevant. It’s their loss, and our gain.

            If this is the experience of such a die-hard newspaper fan as me, what must be the effect of such treatment on its more casual customers? Likely they have far less patience than I.

            The recent flood tide of newspaper failures seems to have crested. But is this experience of mine foretelling the next wave of multiplying folded dailies? It’s a safe bet, if you ask me.

Hearing the Voice of the Customer

The role of a company’s employee communications operation is, by its name and nature, almost exclusively focused inside the organization. Yet, expanding its responsibilities to the company’s other critical audience – its customers – can reap benefits beyond measure.

            That’s not to say that communications managers should take on marketing communications, too. Rather, they should serve as a dialogue facilitator and conduit to the customers’ world to help the internal audience gain a better appreciation for and greater insights into the world of the customer.

            Consider your own experiences receiving shoddy treatment at a retail store, versus the outstanding service you may have gotten elsewhere. Why the difference? It’s not purely happenstance that one experience is consistently great while the other is often lousy.

            The difference between the two is likely the success (or lack thereof) that the respective organizations have had in getting their employees to appreciate the needs and desires of their customers; the challenges those customers face; and the reason those customers come to them in the first place for fulfillment of their needs or solutions to their challenges.

            The purpose of a business is to provide greater ease and comfort for its customers by making their lives simpler on some level, satisfying some desire or need they may have or solving challenges they can’t do on their own. And if the people in your organization that deal directly with your customers aren’t doing that effectively, consistently and courteously, if they are in fact doing the opposite, then organizational failure can’t be far behind.

            Think back to bad experiences you’ve had with businesses, big and small. Are those organizations still in business? Have they declared bankruptcy, been acquired or just folded? Without naming names, I can think of a few that I think got their just deserts.

            In helping my clients improve their employees’ appreciation for the world of the customer, I’ve done the legwork on their behalf in a few cases. The pay-off in each instance was huge – far bigger than the client had expected.

            In two different cases, both industrial companies selling products and services to other businesses, I worked with the sales managers to bring the real world of their customers to the sales team.

            I grabbed my home videocam and conducted interviews with a dozen or so different customers at their sites, asking them about their needs, frustrations, and challenges, as well as how our clients and their competitors were or were not measuring up. The raw footage was edited down to cohesive 15-minute videos for sales meetings.

            The impact was stunning. Both videos stimulated robust and productive discussions. Salesmen who called on these people were hearing things they’d never heard before – or perhaps they hadn’t listened closely enough.

            This doesn’t pertain only to salespeople and those with direct customer contact. It applies equally to all, to back office support personnel, to product developers and manufacturing employees, and everyone else in the company. How better for people to get a sense of why they do what they do, and how they might do it better?

            There was another case where I did a similar customer video that was shown across the organization, even to people without direct customer contact. Especially telling was how the IT department gleaned some important insights into the customers’ world. As a result, they enacted some changes to the company’s software that would improve the customers’ experience when they went online to check their account status.

            Businesses are launched with a vision of meeting previously unsatisfied needs. If that business succeeds at doing that to the point where it grows, loses touch with its original purpose, and gets too big to continue doing that effectively, then what’s the point of being in business?

            The most difficult challenge any company faces in a growth mode, or even just staying ahead of the competition, can be maintaining that awareness and insight into the customer experience among its entire employee population, month after month, year after year.

            To the extent that the company’s employee communications professionals can help sustain and enhance that could be its most valuable contribution to the perpetuation and success of that organization.