Changing subscriber complaints into profits

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov, 1988 by Eliot Schein

Yet there's more! Let's suppose you send with a letter of explanation an offer to renew the subscription of the person in question for two years for the price of one (or at some other rate). This is what is called making a subscriber "a subscriber for life." Eventually (and you needn't worry about this too much), some new person will be on top of that pile anyway, and your favorite subscriber, whom you have managed to get as a permanent loyalist to your publication, will get relief.

One of the biggest problems with complaint letters has to do with the nature of the publication. The more valuable your magazine is to its subscriber group, the more complaint letters you're going to receive. A good example is Playboy. Playboy is considered very valuable. It has a relatively high cover price and an extremely strong continuity interest to its readers. Thus Playboy service yields more than a normal number of subscriber complaints. Years ago, Playboy started covering the magazine in wrappers or using envelopes with return addresses and non-Playboy logos as a way to deter pilferage and the resulting "lost issue" complaints. One was just a simple "HMH" that belied the contents--not in an effort to avoid censorship, but as a means to help the magazine passed untouched by the sticky fingers of those who handled it before it reached the recipient.

One way to cause a great deal of trouble with subscriber complaint letters is to suggest that the publisher be named recipient of the complaint mail. This is suggested, for example, if your billing series or renewal series has the publisher's name "signing" one or more of the efforts. Response mail back to the publisher at the publisher's office is the "hottest" kind of complaint mail you can get. Trust that one letter to the publisher has the clout of 50 to the fulfillment house. So use your publisher's name sparingly in your circulation promotion.

And speaking of fulfillment houses, you must be aware that the person responsible for answering complaint mail is usually not the president or one of the top account executives at the fulfillment house. This task is usually left to clerical people, and it's not a job that is a lot of fun. It's one that requires more than just a little bit of thinking, and it's one that is very often put off until the last minute, on the eve of an update, when the stack of complaint mail threatens to work its way through the rooftops. Unfortunately, speed of response has a lot to do with the degree of pressure from subscribers. The faster the response, the more satisfied the subscribers are. Processing complaint letters is not exactly the most enjoyable activity at the fulfillment house. Therefore, you should make sure your fulfillment house is being assiduous about it. Otherwise, your magazine is going to suffer.

According to fulfillment pro Chuck McEnroe of Grenier, the secret to reductions in subscriber complaints is based on the talent used to deal with inquiries. About the personnel problem, McEnroe says, "One hopes the fulfillment house chooses a higher caliber of person, one who understands the magazine and the specific fulfillment system, to handle customer service communication in writing and on the phone." However idealistically McEnroe's words ring, he's definitely got the right idea.