Based on my own experience of suppliers following up what I write about here and the feedback other newsagents receive from suppliers when they publish comments here, a public forum where newsagents can publish supplier issues could work.
It seems that suppliers are keen to respond to public complaints. That’s good! What is disappointing is that some newsagents have had to resort to public complaint on an issue because the supplier established processes have failed.
Complaints which are subsequently resolved by senior management following a public airing reflect a breakdown in their existing contact structures.
All newsagent larger suppliers in key product categories ought to look at their complaint management processes – newspaper publishers, magazine distributors, greeting card companies.
While I appreciate that it is challenging to manage complaints / questions / issues from a 4,000 strong customer channel, it can be done better than newsagents experience today.
Good idea!
We know that it works because of the abusive responses from publishers who otherwise couldn’t be arsed through the normal process to address our concerns.
Name & shame, I say.
The 4,000 strong customer channel shouldn’t be an issue for any supplier. if they are prepared to sell their products in that channel then they should be prepared for feedback/complaints/issues that go with the channel.
One of our customer service teams can handle 3,500 calls per week (more in the busy times). Admittedly they are not all complaints but they handle it well. As you say Mark, it is all about being prepared and structured well.
“Complaints which are subsequently resolved by senior management following a public airing reflect a breakdown in their existing contact structures.”
Unfortunately, Mark, a lot of this stuff is not resolved at all. Angry, insulting (offensive) phonecalls and contract-quoting via hand-delivered or mailed (post) threats from circulation managers are not my idea of resolution. Rather, they are bordering on (are?!) professional bullying. Nothing changes at all, in fact for some strange reason, we occasionally end up having to send off a few shortage faxes per week as a consequence of broaching a topic. Spooky timing, or what?
It’s a pity, since the smallest amount of professional courtesy (let alone common courtesy) works wonders in preventing issues arising in the first instance.
Problems we’ve had with these corporate cavemen have stemmed from responses to fairly innocent questions/queries, which have sadly set pretty low benchmarks for future engagements.
Having worked successfully in educated, professional environments prior to becoming a newspaper publisher’s pawn, I find their conduct completely unacceptable, unhelpful, and boorish in this day and age.
As for resolution in conjunction with ‘senior managment’, my experience with the newspaper industry (News Ltd in particular) has left me completely disillusioned with any strata of management beyond representatives.
Unfortunately, the ‘normal’ process leaves much to be desired at the get-go.
As for salvaging any ‘relationships’, working or otherwise, the opportunity for that went out the window, as if tied to a burning brick, a long time ago.
It seems certain organisational cultures are still sensitive to, and feel threatened by, any form of inquiry from any level of society. And their only means of response is to intimidate and belittle. Fixing our little red wagons is apparently still the prescribed method of dispute resolution.
Mark, Too stupid for words. Resolution conflict in a public forum will never work It’s just confrontation Plus.
If things are that bad and participants can’t sort out their problems with suppliers in a business like manner without public airing then it’s time sell and move on.
Graeme I love it when you call me stupid.
I put my complaint letter to News Ltd at the following thread, maybe this one is more relevant. I wonder if any one else in Sydney experience late arrivals of News Ltd papers. What annoys me most is while we wait in vain on Sunday morning for the Telegraph, a lot of gas stations start selling it from Saturday night already!! And area manager never returned my calls….
http://www.newsagencyblog.com.au/2010/09/01/major-changes-at-fairfax-2.html#comment-26818
Perhaps if it was looked at as binding together to share the load of working out resolutions to shared issues, as opposed to conflict resolution, it might make more sense, Graeme. A problem shared is a problem halved.
“if things are that bad and participants can’t sort out their problems with suppliers in a business like manner without public airing then it’s time sell and move on”
This is the equivalent of saying instead of Liberal voters sending letters to the Herald complaining about Labor problems they should just shut up and move to New Zealand.
Looks like ALL small business will be “for sale” after reading Graeme’s suggestion.
name and shame actually works.
if you look back, how many cases would have been swept under the rug or verdict ending up differently have it not been for people going public.
would the chappelle corby case ended differently? i think yes.
diplomacy is always good. but it does not always work.
Graeme, with all due respect, the courteous, friendly and businesslike manner has not been successful, all too often. It wasn’t very long before we got to experience News’ modus operandi.
‘Confrontation Plus’ actually defines the ordeals many of us have experienced at the hands of inflexible and unprofessionally defensive managers – and I should imagine there are even more who keep quiet about it. For good reason.
What responses have you received for enquiries related to OHS, stock delivery times, or any other apparently sensitive issue? How do we know that they even are sensitive? Because of responses I’ve already described elsewhere, having been given.
How often have you been in a position to even have to ask these prickly questions yourself?
So, sometimes, things just cry out to be spoken up about.
One of the reasons these individuals get away with being bullies is that many agents are loath to speak up because their livelihoods are at stake.
Nothing is for discussion. ‘Read your contract’ is about the size of it. We’re not customers, people. Not customers. Indentured subcontractors, maybe? Which means they think they’re our bosses. A case in point is their recent OHS throw counter-study, printed on their lawyer’s proforma. If the way that was presented wasn’t meant to intimidate, then I’ll twirl three times and curtsey to the Michellin Man while barking like a dog.
Disclaimer: I don’t speak for anyone else but our business, and the nature of the ‘working relationship’ we find ourselves experiencing.
Or is it just Qld?
Of course confrontation works. I shuffle our delivery run book to put the rudest customer in the front so they can get their paper early and shut up 🙂
Didn’t call you stupid Mark you are from from that and I deeply respect your intellegence however the idea is STUPID! It has no base for improving the lot for newsagents.
Wendy, You are right we need solutions for those that have problems but in public? Don’t think so.
Graeme, the reason some are calling for a public forum is because for too long the “channel” solutions have failed with mediation and they will continue to fail because of the reasons listed by others here. The brick wall & banging head philosophy suits the situation.
I thought the ANF, VANA, NANA would have this in place years ago….
SORRY DREAMING AGAIN!!!
and Han,
Rudest customer gets worst paper, worst spot, in normal run order.. no special treatment down here.
Al
just an idea.
with broadband and telecoms, they have a forum whirlpool.net.au where each company has a subforum.
customers post their problems and reps from each company answer problems.
it has been very effective because its kind of creates a bit of transparency both ways. you can see what the problem is…and what solutions were offered by the other party.
it does not have to be confrontation. think of it as just another way of communication…like a phone call or email but with more transparency. (i’d dare the reps to answer rudely just like they talk to me on the phone)
why would the suppliers be worried if they are doing right by us. right?
by the way Mark, how is it going with the issue of excess paper wastage? were you able to talk to some greens ?
Capital punishment didn’t stop murder, pillage or rape. We need a different solution a private one where we can vent our spleen-so to speak if that’s everybodys wish-so that a solution can come of the venting rather than a spotlight on disturbances by a few irrate (understandally) newsagents. Newsagents have been identifying problems for 40 years that I can recall and often they are same problems. Maybe we need to discuss it differently and present the outcomes differently than we have done before. However when obne discussess every move and thought in public it foreshadows all off the top of the head emotional carry ons that probably only occurred that day. Whereas if an agenda were set and a venue for a time these issues could be well thought out and presented in a cool headed manner and debated by all present in areasonable way without everyone having to read all our problems and Doprothy Dixes answers.
I don’t see any reason why this idea, given the properly structed forum and moderator rules, would not work very effectively.
These kind of forums are already in place for consumers. The hotel industry responds directly to almost all customer feedback and queries posted in the major accomodation forums. Many of the major players in the tech industry respond to queries from just about any source including forums and blogs.
Not only does public forum provide a place for suppliers to resolve problems experienced by the customers, but it creates a database from which retailers can find resolutions to problems already expreienced and resolved by others. This is in addition to providing suppliers with information on how they can inprove their business. If a number of retailers are complaining about the same problem then a supplier should be able to see what changes they need to make to fix it – better yet they can even involve the retailers in designing a solution!
Graeme, a forum would provide a daily go-to place for the problems experience by retailers that can be solved via such a medium. These are not the kind of comprehensive large-scale problems that would demand in-person meetings and presentations. My understanding is that a forum would be aimed at a problem such as “company X is not packing their product properly and its being delivered broken every time” as opposed to the “newspaper company X are forcing me to deliver even when it isn’t profitable” kind of problem.
Jarryd I don’t agree. Your example of the travel industry and accommodation is just what I am against for our industry. When one looks up the blogs on Hotels one gets an extreme variation from time to time. It’s a matter of what pleases aome doesn’t please others etc.
This is NOT about customer feedback (boy that would be something our suppliers would like to see) this is about Supplier problems.
Do you see a blog about the Hospitality industry complaining about the supplies of food be late, bad, stale or rotten or the sheets not being washed properly or the cleaners not cleaning the rooms?
If you a customer complaint segment then that’s a different thing.
This is not about that it’s about airing personal (perceived problems in public) with the view to embarrassing the supplier. “my papers were thrown all over the footpath” thing is this what you are talking about? with your example of “company ex is not packing their product properly etc”
really I think it a little small time unless it happens every day or more often than it reasonably should. Then I think you’ll fing, unless the driver dislikes you for a reason, that the company in question would have many such complaints and along with yours would do something about it. Associations if it was wide spread and not individual would also bring it to the fore.
Think about it Jarryd does the industry you really need a collective public winge to get the suppliers to do something that is radically wrong? Anything that isn’t that bad is fairly trivial anyway and not worth airing.
There is no “we” Graeme as you are not a newsagent. Mark’s suggestion has merit. It is not stupid as you say.
Jeff.
I take on board that I am not a newsagent That is a defence mechanism that somee newsagents use at times when they don’t have a proper answer. It carrys no weight not like a layman to a lawyer or a nursing aide to a Doctor. You have just proved the open blog’s validity of refined debate by your defence and lack of producing a debate as to “why” it has merit only to say Mark’s suggestion has merit ”
Help us if this is to be the standard of open forum discussion on industry problems.
One vote for the stupid argument so far-thank you jeff.
p.s I was a newsagent for 20 years owning 3 of them in that time one with a large delivery one started from scratch in a shopping centre and one in a reginal strip shopping centre plus I have spent another 20 years serving the industry in a number of roles including CEO of NANA LTD . What’s your experience Jeff?
Have you been exposed on behalf of the industry in heavy negotiations with industry suppliers? publishers? ACCC? Being a neswagent is not a manatory right to industry knowledge nor is a natural right to problem solving however it is hard work very rewarding for many that are suited for it and not without frustration, as is with most small businesses howver it offers compared with other small business offers a very good return on investment a healtyhly ans clean environment ot work in and community participation in an integrated sense with most problems that occur being able to be sorted if handled correctly. The proof is the existing system has being working for over 119 years. Nana has a photo of the original Board of Directors taken in 1891.
The biggest problem you have is you’re dealing with the media. Oz media will make token noises for you as a group but with so many publishers being partly intertwined with large media conglomerates, you cause won’t be heard.
Probably explains how Howard got lobbied into making the newsagency channel the opposite of free enterprise.
ed mentioned whirlpool, which is precisely the dynamic agents need to follow. Until you all sing from the same song sheet & you get airtime – you might change old management habits.
Really is time to make an example of some suppliers…
I stand by my suggestion. While I would like associations to engage in this, this blog at least serves a purpose in providing focus on some issues. It also leads to some resolution and the opening of dialogue with suppliers on these issues.
I don’t care for the history lesson of some as today’s problems are today’s problems and quite different to the challenges of even ten years ago.
Newsagents need to decide if they have what it takes to address these.
what are you so scared of Graeme? You had your chance and from what I see failed in setting the industry up for future sutainability. This is now our industry to make of it what we will, the difference that i can see is that there are more business people in the game now and we are no prepared to be quiet and put up with poor supplier performance. If the service i receive is poor I will stand on the roof top and tell evrybody if that’s what it takes to get change. Let’s face it how much worse can thing really get?
I feel as though I have just been dismissed as the major suppliers have been dismissing me for years. And just like in my dealings with them, I will suck it up, put my head down and just get back to work.
But I will continue to read the Australian Newsagency Blog because, right now, I believe it’s one of the best sources of information for me as a newsagent.
I agree with Mark.
The situation now is not good so what we have had in the past is clearly not working.
A new solution is at hand and is worth pursuing, it is also clear that this blog is read and so a whirlpool style of problem/solution correspondance is valid.
Graeme, your concern that dirty laundry being aired is not good for us may well be the case in the short term but as the forum matures and probelms are not only being discussed but also addressed I am confident that discussion will be mature and professional. The dirty laundry now is a symptom of individuals feeling impotent and unable to affect the future. As they join as one voice that anger will abate.
Of course the other ‘solution’ has been hinted at more than once in this thread:
Sell up.
Already seeing that – as well as closures of accounts and, unfortunately, stores.
For some, it couldn’t get any worse.
Graeme should we have all kept quiet about Bill Express or should we have bloged the hell out of it until every newsagent new about what was going on? I for one only new anything about what was going on was with this blog.
Rick, nobody can forsee the future The GFC proved that. One does what one can do on the day. As you say this is a “new” era and changes in a deregulated environment have necessitated in a different approach to the market. This approach may be hard for some of the suppliers to adjust to and maybe they are particulary bad at it however there is a huge difference in resolving identified industry problems, privately debated and sorted, put into sensible formatted words and presented to the defaulting party those objections representing a given number of newsagents to placing all the “washing’ out here without any proper filter or thought process. I would think irrespective of the era there is a way to do things and a way not to.
We shall see.The emphasis needed and is catered for with this forum is better business opportunitys and better practices and well as knowing business in a number crunching sense. This forum does that well and I believe it encourages suppliers to think favourably about the industry and that someone is doing something positive. Public complaint handling – I think it is a negative all round and in a word Stupid.
By the way where on earth did you get “scared” from. If having a plan and a strategic way of presenting something for negotation rather than hiding behind a ‘pen name” on a blog shows being “scared” mmmm! This proposal is a ripper and should make fanscinating reading.
the GFC has nothing to do with the current one sided business relationships that we are stuck with because so called industry representative bodies were more interested in self importance and politics to listen to the membership. The GFC has just made business that bit harder that we are all looking at how to tighten up the back office, this includes a very inefficient supply chain.
sometimes you need to hang the dirty laundry out if you want to clean out the closet and make a fresh start. Its not like many people outside the industry are going to find it terribly interesting anyway, so the so called public will mainly be industry stakeholders anyway, and they need to know whats going on
It must be harder to sell newsagencies when they’re not pressed, deodorised, and folded up so neatly, tied with bows. Graeme, you have bandied the word ‘agenda’ about a little in your time. Could this word apply to you this time?
I knew the extent to which publishers /distributors asserted control of newsagencies, and was a bit surprised it was still allowed to go on, frankly, in this day and age. Cool. Suck that up, Princess, we thought to ourselves.
What we so very weren’t prepared for, however, was the aggression and bully-boy tactics used by these puffed-up footy jocks in ENFORCING them. Not even implementation, but enforcement.
Good lord, we’re supposed to be all grown-ups here. We all paid a shitload of money to be treated like this.
Give me a break, Graeme. Make nice, if you want to. You have a concept to sell.
But we have to live, as well as make a living with this concept, while shaking the shit out of the pleats, if you must keep with the laundry analogy.
Better to know why relationships break down in this industry (fiefdom!), rather than learn the hard way, when it’s way too late to decide otherwise.
Y&G. I have no agenda and have no need for one. I am not accusing anybody else of having one.I have an opinion as you do. I have expressed mine and shall leave you people to ‘bash’ it out.
Rick The GFC remark was entirely directed at “not being able to forsee the future”.
As for the comment about bill express ther was ample warning about the model Ken Murphy Graeme Hand and myself warned against it. Mark supported it when he was at ANF and his reasoning was based on new inroads. We can all be wise in hindsight. If it was blogged I doubt if many would have taken notice anyway for at that stage they had legal binding contracts.
I fail to see the newsagency industry as a “concept” let alone trying to sell it as such. We sell hard fact of figures to peole that are looking for a decent return in a business model that they can trust.
It is the newsagent that presents these figures from the fruits of their hard work and business acumen plus the contracts that they have in place.
I am having a little bit of trouble understanding the bitterness and the “somebody else is to blame” syndrome often expressed here. Thank goodness it is just a very few people in this industry and ceratinly not representative of the majority.
The forum I see would present an opportunity for suppliers to be proactive in a way which would benefit newsagents. It could, of itself, be a unifying force.
This blog received between 1,200 and 1,500 unique visitors a day. This suggests that there is newsagent and supplier interest in public discussion.
graham with regard to bill xpress who did you warn ? not me the only way i knew anything about it was from here The blog . Now maybe if you had a forum we would have all known way in advance to what was about to happen
Shaun,
It was passed onto the ANF from the joint Stae CEO’s after discussion. The ANF put it to the newsagents and they supported it. Anyway this is hardly the point some things win and some don’t there will always be success and failure that’s business. The point is already this debate has shown the diversification of attitudes and opinions what’s gone wrong in the past and what could be aired to make things bnetter in the future. Read what has been said and see if any of it could really alter your daily situation with suppliers..Mark if so many suppliers read this blog here and I believe they do then surely they could comment (and some do) on subjects that they feel they could contribute without having to personally address the matter directly to them in public.
Most people ask for people to put their complaint in writing and send it to them for evaluation, sonsideration and all that sort of policy. Here is a venue that has instant emotion, character assasination as a result and mostly by unidentified people. Hardly a recipe to be taken seriously. More of a folly I would think.
Graeme,
Its hard to compare a blog to a forum that would likely have different rules and no anonymity. A properly structured forum would have a clear process to follow for plaintiffs and respondents, in conjunction with a team of moderators following a set of rules.
Also, you say that its not a customer feedback forum that is being proposed … But that id exactly what it is, or do you forget that we are the customers of suppliers.
Things that may seem trivial to you may very well be a common occurrence for a retailer for whom that problem (no matter how small) is continually costing time and money.
Jarryd,
Exactly my point.
The public is not a customer of your suppliers either.
Apart from that newsagents are customers of suppliers but also they are contracted customers of suppliers. Some contracts are Principal and Agent ones Newspapers, Magazines (some) Lotteries, where there is provision for dispute resolution within the contract and many things that you have agreed upon. So, when venting your spleen so to speak publicly no one would understand whether you are right ior wrong-some newsagents may well do that when they don’t even know what is in their contract. Othe agreements are ones of trading terms which need to be respected as a one to one cutomer relationship. Opening all this up for public scrutiny when it doesn’t really have anything to do with is is a waste of time therefore if nothing can be gained and something to lose it is therefore-Stupid.
As for daily dealings costing you money, no matter how small the complaint it is a fact of life that today everyone is stretched too thin and with modern communication and the lack of personal contact i.e. press button 3 and another voice mail press button 4 etc. the frustration is at an all time high.
Yes, we all are in this World, of gross inefficiency and lack of productivity as well as product knowledge, not just newsagents and the public also have this problem so I believe you need to go back to whom the problem is with en masse if you will with a properly structed case for your concerns otherwise the postings here will just be seen as a “whinge Fest” that should be handled within.
the whole time i’ve been reading this thread i’ve been thinking… why doesn’t someone just make one then?
there’s lots free forums available. and if you don’t like it, don’t use it. simple.
sure it may not fix things, but it can be somewhere where everyone can share their experiences and problems with each other. and maybe also have a whinge.
as it is now, this blogsite is proving to be a place where we all come together and share ideas/frustrations.
the way i see it having a fulltime forum would be a HUGE positive in the following ways:
1. members can start particular thread with particular concern/issue. right now we are just “hi-jacking” threads in Mark’s blog to express ourselves.
2. continuing from point #1 particular problems can helped be solved by the community. i’ll give a hypothetical scenario:
for example, A wants to ask opinion of other people in executing a particular strategy. A can then get particular feedback and specific answers.
3.suppliers can designate a rep to answer questions directed at them. It MIGHT sow some goodwill because we will feel that we are being listened to. As oppose to now where at least 90% of us feels ignored.
to aaron,
it is easy to make a forum and buy a domain name. But in order to become credible, there needs to be further planning on things such as but not limited to…..moderators who can donate time to monitor forums and police abusive/junk thread/comments
another thing is how to confirm identity of members. sure it would be good to have guests post ideas/comments from time to time. But if this forum to going to be for newsagents. it has to be for the newsagent BY the newsagent.
another example that came to mind regarding airing problems in public.
the david jones case…do you think that lady would have gotten anywhere if she didn’t come to media?
Fact of the matter is…..big companies are pompous and act like they are superman and invulnerable. But they do have 1 kryptonite…. public image.
Any public forum that is serious about dealing with issues between retailers and suppliers can’t be focused on the outcome for only one side. The forum itself would need to be an impartial and unbiased place which aimed to acheive outcomes for BOTH supplier and retailer. A credible forum in which suppliers are willing to participate will not come from a place littered with supplier bashing.
Any forum would need to be carefully planned and not simply rolled out from a standard forum template. A highly customised portal that meets the specific needs of both types of user is key.
Jarryd,
You got it right. Years ago in the ages before Blogs and emails in 1989 we (the association board of which I was a director) organised a “get up your nose” meeting with suppliers (mainly publishers and Mag distributors) we made a list from both sides organised a chairperson and around a huge table with 26 people around it went for it. It wasn’t all pleasant and heated at times but we ended up a lot better off afterwards. If it was even made public afterward it would never occur again. Subsequenty with the changing of newsagents on the board and positions within the companies concerned it fell off the perch. Go for it Jarryd if you think you can get a private forum with an agenda and the co-operation of suppliers to attend. I sincerely wish you well. Go For it!
I might add after the meeting was over we had a great lunch and developed some really good understanding. This resulted in News Ltd -Fairfax and ACP inviting newsagents round 8-10 at a time into their respective establishments for lunch and a talk on a monthly or 6 weekly basis.
It’s better to “Jaw Jaw” than to “War War”
so Churchill said anyway.
And what to we have to show for this and other talking Graeme? Not much. Our history is littered with stories of people who have talked on behalf of newsagents. There is very little to show for the time spent.
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”
hope the suppliers paid for the great lunch!!!!
na it was business as usual we paid 75% and they paid 25%- sound familiar.
Actually I really don’t remember, however they probably did as I can’t recall the Newsagents ever paying for any supplier held function jointly held or not.
Mark,
You seem to have whipped up a number of followers to do what you proposed. Why answer my post when you don’t qualify what it is that others didn’t achieve?
Have the courage of your convictions and lead the silent majority to the promised land.
We have both put our point of view out there so there is nothing much more to discuss.
Over to you and yours.