After decades of loyal, low cost, accurate newspaper home delivery service, News Ltd. is planning to send letters to subscribers in which they throw newsagents under the bus, inferring their service has sub-standard.
News Ltd. has send impacted Queensland distribution newsagents newsagents a package, including letters to be sent to subscription customers. This paragraph is from the second letter:
This is appalling wording. Improved customer experience? To do that, News Ltd. will need to:
- Be contactable 24/7. That is, human contact, not a recording or a computer system.
- Have people dealing with queries who understand local situations.
- Get the papers out on time – this relates to many complaints.
- Be a good listener as many customer complaints relate to matters under control of News Ltd.
Back to the paragraph from the letter, it suggests that News Ltd. has been delivering the paper, when it has not. Sure, there is a nod to the accuracy of newsagents – but News Ltd. claims this is their achievement, when it is not.
For a company in the communication business, this letter is appalling.
I feel for Queensland newsagents and what they, and their customers, are about to endure.
Overall nobody does or did a home delivery as well as the newsagent-nobody. Those that cared did stop starts on a daily basis. Re-delivered, yes re-delivered the newspaper that the customer couldn’t find by not looking thoroughly (bushes etc are a part of the delivery they attract newspapers) or those geuniunely missed.
The letter is a disgrace especially when their own track record of non service is so outstanding.
This is public realations at its worst.
Living proof that the relationship is over. Sad.
As was done in Sydney and it has cost them customers due to far poorer levels of services for delivery, account payment, new, changed or cancelled subscriptions. Further if they use the same delivery model as used in Sydney there will be issues with chain of responsibility laws for transport and potentially IR laws. However, I must remember Rupert does own a Government.
I agree Graeme. Newsagents have, for decades, delivered the an excellent newspaper home delivery service. Local. Personal. Customer-focussed. What has made it great for customers is being ignored and lost by these News Ltd. moves.
They should allow customers to contact NSW customers that they have lost due to the poor service the new system has provided. Those customers would confirm that their claims above are total lies!
Victorian metro newsagents have this to look forward to in 2021.
I have had excellent service from my local newsagent who has been delivering papers for decades. Easy payment of account.
I predict contractors will be employed (How many) – what’s the difference from the newsagents who are familiar with the local areas and interact with their customers.
Easy to stop and start if going on holidays.
If I have to contact News Ltd, will I have to hang on for ages waiting for someone to answer. OR do it on line – will deliverer get notice in time?
I also forecast the price of the papers will increase to cover the amounts paid to the contractors.
It will also mean less business for newsagents who will eventually shut up shop from lack of custom. e.g visit newsagent to pay account and buy lotto tickets etc or other magazines and so on.
We have had a 7day newspaper delivery for over 40 years. First by newsagent and in last 2 years by News Ltd contractor. The newsagent was excellent but the contractor is hit and miss. Some days we get paper some days not. It can be delivered anywhere fron 5am to 12 midday. Just recently it has been changed to a plastic sealed cover with paper being delivered flat. The driver must find it impossible to throw from vehicle. Our paper ends up anywhere from our neighbours yard to being on gutter or on the road. We also were told the late delivery is because the paper is coming from Sunshine Coast. Heaven forbid why we live in Brisbane.
Rob, newsapapers will take their own course of survival and newagents today will adjust.
in the fifties Milk Bars were the rage and strated to fade in the sixties MCDonalds came along and offered a different community type meal with an inferior hamburger and lousy milk shake. McDonalds grew Milk Bars faded except!!! for those that coverted…to Cafes.
Newsagents aren’t dying because of the newspaper element it’s because they haven’t reached out for the community as did McDonalds and the Cafe (to a different society) plenty are behaving like the Cafe conversion and others like the McDonalds -in short they are reaching out for their “own” market place. The dying ones are closing for different reasons, failure to adjust, financially not adjusted to change and socially not as well.
Chris thanks for sharing your story. The track record of News Corp suggests they are not interested. While they say home delivery is important, their actions suggest they are managing an expected ultimate shutdown of the service.
I work for an Aged Care home. We had an excellent newsagent who supplied and delivered to the home. We can have changes during any week, through death of a resident or a new resident joining our community. When we received advice of the change Newscorp introduced, discussions were had with newscorp and their requirements. One of which is advanced payment of 10 weeks delivery of papers. Then due to the nature of papers required by our residents, we would have to open not one but three different accounts. The other option was for the resident/representative to arrange their own account. Well cost to do this was not acceptable. We then had to communicate this to our residents and their family, explaining the situation and what was required. Well guess what, some residents do not have family or representative to assist with this because they choose to still be involved in their own business. Another problem, the residents don’t have credit cards, Newscorp, while all this was happening several phone calls were made to Newscorp to get something underway for a few residents who receive “extra service”. Our accounts lady believed things were moving, until she was notified yesterday that they will not issue accounts. Something our Head Office requests. Newscorp have put up one roadblock after another for our residents. May god help anyone in the future who wish to talk to someone of authority, because the person on the line you have been talking to will not put a call through. Request to speak with the complaints department, Newscorp don’t have one. Go on their website, confirmed I could not lodge complaint online to their complaints area. I was able to leave a comment and requested a call back, as they have a box on this page to check. Surprise, surprise NO One has contacted me. As caring workers in the Aged Care community we will not let our residents down. Newscorp, you have no idea how you have affected this community. They have read your product for many years, no doubt so too their mother’s and fathers. We won’t give up.
I sympathise totally with you Joanne. You are expected to care for many loyal readers, I have one, my mother, who has had the ‘Courier-Mail’ delivered for 61 years! After health issues she has moved address and well the dramas we have had with non-delivery! Two helpful News Corp staff in the subscriptions department have tried, but to no avail. Guess what, if I were you, I would arrange for the appropriate number of papers to be collected from the local newsagency (purchased over the counter) and your residents would receive them (unwrapped, easier for arthritic fingers) to read before breakfast! Good Luck, you will need it.
Joanne,
Thanks for sharing this story. I do know that some folk from News Corp read this blog. Hopefully they read of your experience.
We have had the Courier Mail and Sunday Mail delivered to the same address for over 45 years. Since our delivery service has been taken over by an unknown delivery source we have had extremely poor service.
It is now almost 10am and our Sunday Mail has yet to be delivered. Yesterday’s paper arrived after 10.30am. Some weekends we don’t even get a delivery. If we do it is never before 9am.
We have reported it on numerous occasions as have our neighbours. We were told once, that our paper should be delivered no later than 8am and to report it if it wasn’t. As the phone number is an automated service, this is useless and achieves nothing.
Recently we were away for three weeks. We had cancelled the papers for this period. After three days our neighbour messaged to say it was still being delivered. We rang a different number and were assured that our cancellation request had been received and that delivery would be stopped. Needless to say the papers were delivered everyday we were away. This poses a security risk. Fortunately our neighbour removed it from our yard each day.
It is about time that the delivery service be investigated. Perhaps they are hoping the extremely poor service will result in people ceasing to get the paper version.
Has anyone been able to locate a person in the organisation who can fix this problem?
News Ltd. is the most unreliable company I have ever dealt with. Firstly when our newsagent delivered our papers for over 50 years, they always arrived early. When we stopped our delivery when we were going on holidays, they stopped & restarted every time. Since News Ltd. took over the delivery, papers if they arrived at all, came very late, sometimes as late as 9.30am as they were late to arrive on the Gold Coast.
We went to Sydney in June this year & I cancelled the papers with News Ltd. for three weeks. A neighbour called us that papers were still being delivered in our absence. Again I called News Ltd. to have them stopped. We were in Sydney & of course our Premier closed the Qld. border & we were unable to come home because we could not go into hotel quarantine because of health problems. I called News Ltd. to inform them of this & extended the recommence date. Of corse papers were still being delivered. Each time I rang I was given a case number but when I rang them every time they had no record of the case number. Finally we received an exemption to come back to Qld. I rang News Ltd. to inform them & papers were due to be delivered the next morning. Of course no papers were delivered so I rang again & once again I stated the case number but again their records didn’t show a case number but I was assumed the papers would be delivered today. Of course they weren’t. I rang again this morning & was advised the office was closed. NEWS LTD. IS A JOKE.
I work in a Servo and sick and tired of being abused by customers as NO PAPERS until after 8 – 9 am and I can’t blame the customers either because I would be upset as they make a special trip to collect. Also note the delivery driver is a UBER driver (really). Also my OWN home delivery is so late – don’t get the Sunday paper until we’ll after 9am. My local Newsagent delivers anywhere after 4.30 am and the latest was 5.30am.
I am very tired of not receiving the delivery of the Courier Mail on a regular basis. The delivery time is most inconsistent with a 3hr variation in time, we have no paper today and usually one day a week we fail to receive one. I think it is time to hand the deliveries back to newsagents as they were much more reliable. It does make your subscription very expensive when we have to go and buy a paper from the newsagent. I am not asking for very much, just drop a paper when travelling pass. Please HELP.