If a Courier-Journal carrier skips you, or someone steals your paper, or if it gets wet, and you call for a replacement, "it's not gonna happen," the 'Ville Voice says. "There will be no re-delivery of missed papers on weekdays."The paper eliminated the customer service because its circulation department was especially hard hit in the recent round of layoffs, the blog says. The Louisville, Ky., paper laid of 15 of its 1,100 employees.
The blog quotes a memo it says newly appointed Publisher Arnold Garson sent to the staff: "This is a step other newspapers have taken to help reduce costs with minimal impact. Saturday and Sunday redelivery continues."
Has your newspaper discontinued re-delivery of missed papers? Was the impact as minimal as Garson said? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
Earlier: New Louisville pub's age raises tenure questions
[Image: today's Courier-Journal front page, Newseum]
Jeez, I know newspapers have to cut costs. But this seems like a really stupid move.
ReplyDeleteIt's become a broken record on this blog, but cutting a few million dollars from the corporate honchos' collective take would pay for an awful lot of carriers.
Nothing new. Springfield has been screwing subscribers with a similar policy for about a year now. Stupid move! Next they'll just not print a paper but say they did...
ReplyDeleteWho in his right mind would keep a subscription with this kind of customer service????
ReplyDeleteThe internet as information medium looks better and better.
Hey, Dubow, wake up or we will see the newspaper going down the drain.
Then again, I believe the entire executive suite is asleep at the helm.
Anyone who misses a paper for which they have paid should immediately demand a refund. The cost of processing all those 50-75 cent refunds will quickly outstrip the savings of not delivering replacement papers.
ReplyDeleteWhat a PR nightmare this creates.
ReplyDeleteThis what happens when you have a TV Guy and a bean counter running a newspaper company.
ReplyDeleteJackson, MS, is adopting the same policy.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget, newsroom people are not the only ones getting hacked. Finance, production, building services, maintenance, and the rest of the support areas, lives are being turned upside down too.
ReplyDeleteCall me crazy, but I don't see a reason to have someone in management hop in a company car, guzzle gas out to some god-forsaken suburb and drop off a newspaper just because the teenage paperboy tossed it in the bushes by mistake. The idea that we can rebuild the print business by throwing a bunch of money at it is crazy. If we have to cut, let's preserve news hole and local content, and the ad sales teams. For once, this C-J employee is on board.
ReplyDeleteYou take customer service "in any department" out of the picture and all you have left is the Wally World of the print media industry. There are advertising departments that have reduced bodies and where a customer has to deal with 3 different people to place a single ad. Yeah like that isn't the opitomy of communication breakdown waiting to happen, then have to send the Ad rep out again to explain (read:-lie) to the customer to make all things right again. Just a viscious circle that ends up in more lost revenue.
ReplyDeleteThere is only so mush local money a market can support, and if the population of a market is in the decline then so will reveues in both retail and circulation sales. You can't squeeze blood out of thin air.
"Call me crazy, but I don't see a reason to have someone in management hop in a company car, guzzle gas out to some god-forsaken suburb and drop off a newspaper just because the teenage paperboy tossed it in the bushes by mistake. The idea that we can rebuild the print business by throwing a bunch of money at it is crazy. If we have to cut, let's preserve news hole and local content, and the ad sales teams. For once, this C-J employee is on board."
ReplyDeletei disagree. i tend to agree with the school of thought that says you gotta spend money to make money.
your earning potential is infinitely greater than your saving potential.
also lets not forget that its cheaper to keep existing customers than it is to try and find new ones. I for one know that if I didn't get a paper a few times and they wouldn't issue me a refund or deliver me a new one, they'd have one less subscriber.... but i don't subscribe anyways so who cares.
Same thing in Delaware. I left USAT in 04 and took the News J. Wet and missing paper went nowhere. Fog means no paper.
ReplyDeleteRedelivery's near-dead in Az, too. Way to service the customer base!
ReplyDeleteWay to go cut off your nose to despite your face. Can anyone stop the madness at the top.I know I stopped taking a news paper years ago simply because the carrier missed my house two or three times a week. I could care less how good the local news coverage was, I just got tired of trying to get one delivered daily. Now i get all my news for free on the internet. Thanks for saving me all of those sub fees.
ReplyDeleteThe newspaper industry is going down. Anytime I am on my local paper website for The Des Moines Register, it asks for money per article. .75 cents for a whole daily paper at the newsstand, but try to read it online and you get asked to pay $3 per article, up to $2000 for a yearly subscription of only 1000 articles.
ReplyDeleteWhy? When we can search online for free anywhere else?
If you think online is the future, why not make it free instead of frustrating readers on their website by charging an arm and a leg.
$2000 for a yearly subscription to the des moines register?
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the customer service people are supposed to say when customers call and ask to have another paper delivered? "I'm sorry sir, but .... "
ReplyDelete"... just because the teenage paperboy tossed it in the bushes by mistake."
ReplyDeletePaperboy? I thought most states/towns outlawed paperboys/girls working before dawn after a spate of accidents, molestations and kidnappings some years ago.
Now freelance contractors toss papers from speeding minivans.
Having delivered newspapers for most of my adult life it's not always the paperboy tossing it in the bushes... Of course that's what the managers always assume...
ReplyDeleteThis probably will be a smart move for the CJ... Here's how it will go down... The Cost of a MISS went up a few years back... I suspect it will now go up even more now... They're probably writing the letters now about how important making sure you deliver the papers and they're going to raise the cost of a miss.... I'm not sure what it is now... but say you miss a M-S paper now... Say they charge the carrier $2 bucks for the miss. They refund the .50¢ to the customer... The way I see it they've just made $1.50...
One thing doesn't make sense... There were supposed to be 15 layoffs... Garson's letter said that 9 took voluntary layoffs... 4 were actually let go.... That's 13... Where are the other two...?
ReplyDelete1:44 IO suspect the elimination of two open positions
ReplyDeleteOne reporter resigned to take another job just a day or two before layoffs were announced, so I expect that position is included.
ReplyDeleteYou people need to stop scarring yourselves and look at least in Phoenix we have 2,500 employees and you know what I know of people that have worked for "gannett" for 30 to 40 years that they are Blantently laying off without a toostie pop! My foot the door!!!!!!!! Cowardly money grubing child hating white collar trash!!!! No other way to explain them! I have my half a million dollar house screw the union and the kids!! Disgracefull and I hope St, Peter locks the gates of heaven from the slimeballs from getting in!! These are the last of the "Bushies" and their crappy econemy!! I have ben previously deleted from this blog and we wil see if he will play his editor games again after gannett laid hin to his disgruntled waste....................at least sparky nor hi didn't spend 30 to 40 years working for a comapny that puts him out like the trash!!!
ReplyDeleteI would believe that you opened this bolg for "freedom Of the pres" or speech! as long as people were respectful..........opinions will NEVER always be yours so Never delete free speech and then you justify yourself my friend!!
ReplyDeletePhoenix is a newspaper where the peeps lack the the BALLs to speak up...........besides me!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteregardles I still have a job and am very soory for the fa,milies out of "phoenix" that are being treated like "lepers"!! Shame on management!!! Greed rules under bush and his plans!!!
ReplyDeleteIn politics everything is relavent!
ReplyDeleteSanitized?
ReplyDeleteI have "one " Honest question..........if you can "honestly" answer..............did you vote for the current president and how many times!!!!!!That in itself would be very imformitive!
ReplyDelete@3:54, What do you mean, "you people"?
ReplyDeleteSome people make thier own beds my friends then have all the denial in the world!!
ReplyDeleteWell "dan " I am listening?!
ReplyDeleteIt is quite uncanny ............ I would like to personally know if othe people are just getting laid off? Across the Gannett world, I have my suspitcions that management is trying to keep the money!
ReplyDelete7 laid off in newsroom in indy plus at least 13 in other depts. managing editor job unfilled (in charge when exec editor is gone), like so many other jobs that have vanished while workload increased.
ReplyDeleteI did not vote for Bush, however, when Obama or McCain get elected, what exactly will be your song then? Do you all blame everything on politics? Or is it the Republicans? OK, say Obama is elected...will the newpaper industry turn itself around? Will we all find ourselves back at work for Gannett again?
ReplyDeleteIn Phoenix. It's so sad of everything that has happened already when they recently let go of some night dc managers and the dock supervisor. It's so awful to know that more good people may not have a job soon. We used to drive to look forward to going in because of the awesome people that "used" to work there. Now we drive in wondering who's next or how long we are even going to have a job. Time is limited for everyone who works for a newspaper industry. At least with the "actual" paper. Everyone is going online to read what they what. Job market is bad so unless we get another job and take a pay cut or are willing to get 2 jobs for what we get paid now, we have to stick it out and continue to put food on the table.
ReplyDeleteMy heart goes out to everyone who have lost their jobs and/or will soon...eventually it will be most of us though that will be let go or have to go for one reason or another.
Give people a smaller paper, charge them more, then don't respond when you fail to deliver the paper they've already paid for.
ReplyDeleteThis will never be a case study at Harvard Business School. The stupidity of it is much too obvious.
My mother subcribes to the Courier-Journal and said that if it wasn't for the crossword puzzle she'd dump it. Since it went to the penny-saver format, filling it's pages with AP and GNS, there's not much to keep borderline subcribers on board.
ReplyDeleteApparently the circulation promo ads of "Miss A Day. Miss A Lot." was all a bunch of B.S. too.
ReplyDeleteLook, I understand the costs involved, but Gannett is really harming its reputation with its readers, and furthering harming this industry.
Nothing Gannett does makes much sense. That company isn't fooling readers.
ReplyDelete3:32
ReplyDeleteOr fooling their staff...
Or advertisers, I'd guess.
ReplyDeleteWe're all fooling ourselves if we think any of the upper management has any concern for the long-range survival of the company. That's why losing a customer over one missed paper is fine with them. They're more concerned about the short-term gain. Most of the top execs have one aim: keeping the company afloat long enough for them to retire with a nice cushion. Who cares what happens after that.
ReplyDeleteI finished my tunnel and escaped Gannett hell several years ago, but this is a ridiculous policy. I've worked at several papers where I've taken my personal vehicle to deliver a missed paper after hours or on weekends. And I'd do the same at my current employer. To me it is essential every one of our subscribers get what they paid for. Gannett is no longer going down in flames because there's nothing left to burn. Good riddance.
ReplyDelete