Complete Story
07/28/2015
When newspapers don’t care about their customers
These days, people tend to know what they’re going to get when they subscribe to a newspaper. They may get irritated by the editorial pages, bothered by the tone and amount of news coverage, or left wanting by the lack of sports coverage for their favorite teams. Still, there’s enough value in the paper that they want it.
What people don’t expect — and which is hastening the demise of the business — is poor customer service. What do you do when people try to give you money, and you don’t seem to want it?
Enter Bruce Wiley, a Facebook friend of mine who lives in High Point. The News & Record — my former paper — sent him a subscription offer in the mail, and he decided he wanted to start Sunday-only home delivery. He called the paper, and that’s when his problems began.
“Having been a previous subscriber, they had my information in their system, including my old landline number. I told them that number was no longer in service and gave them my cell phone number to update their records. I also instructed the young lady to start delivery on July 12th since we would not be home July 4th weekend.
