We send credit cards left in our newsagency and not reclaimed for a day or so back to the issuing bank with a covering letter. Not once has any of the banks written to us thanking us and while we are not looking for kudos, it would be nice to have the return of the card acknowledged. Given the risk of credit card fraud of lost cards I would have thought our attention to closing the loop was appreciated.
I am sure we are not alone in receiving resumes from people walking in looking for a job. While it is time consuming, we consider each. If there is a candidate offering a perfect match of skills for our business we talk with them. This is rare. So, for most it is a no. We write to each, thanking them for their interest and advising our decision. Beyond the common courtesy of our approach I see it as good public relations – who knows where the walk in candidate knocking on your door today will be in five or ten years. We have a template letter so the labour component of the follow up is not onerous.
Our most recent new casual team member came to us by walking in with his resume. It was his follow up which got him the interview. Persistence pays off.
I knew I was in trouble yesterday morning when I got in the taxi at Brisbane airport and the driver didn’t know where The Glen hotel was. It was like a repeat of my experience Wednesday in Sydney but worse. This guy pulled over several times trying to use his street directory – refusing to let me find the destination. When it was clear he really had no clue he pulled over on the freeway and gave me his TomTom and asked me to get us out of the mess. What should have been a 25 minute journey took an hour an a half.
At the destination there was more. His credit card machine was broken. He asked me to take out his manual swipe thing and write up my own card – he could not write English. That took five minutes because the swipe thing was wedged in the side door pocket. Then we argued about tolls. $8 in tolls seemed excessive.
There is more – like being asked six times how I was, as if he had a loop track playing one of the few English phrases he had to ask.
As I noted yesterday, newsagents are like taxi drivers. The channel is judged by the last experience. The poor performers hurt not only their business but all of us. This is why marketing groups are important – members can break away from the newsagency shingle and build public awareness around greater discipline which backs the brand.
I don’t want my business judged as I now judge all Brisbane taxi drivers.
I am hosting a series of business round-table discussions with newsagents starting next week. If you are interested in participating please email our bookings co-ordinator. Any newsagent wold be most welcome – regardless of the software being used.
The details are: Brisbane – Tuesday October 2 @ 10am; Sydney – Wednesday October 3 @ 10am; Melbourne – Tuesday October 9 @ 10am; Adelaide – Thursday October 11 @ 10am; Newcastle – Tuesday October 16 @ 10am; Perth – Wednesday October 17 @ 10am.
The session draws on years of working with newsagencies of all sizes and in all manner of locations and the business decisions data helps you navigate. We will also discuss how to use your shop to up-sell rather than the lazier approach they use in petrol stations.
I was in a newsagency the other day and noticed a discount box near the entrance. In the box was a mixture of items – all priced at $2.00. What surprised me was that the items were the freebies provided with magazines, taken off copies prior to return.
Newsagents doing this need to consider how this looks to customers and employees. My view is that it is something a cheapskate would do. I think this is how employees would see the activity. From a customer perspective, you have to wonder what they see as the connection between the discount box and the main-game products in the newsagency.
I respect that newsagents have the right to run their businesses how they see fit. However, we all need to understand that we do under our newsagency shingle reflects on our colleagues.
It was good to catch up with some newsagents in Sydney at the GNS Market Fair today.
For me, the fair was a lesson in customer service, personal customer service. At the Tower Systems stand, newsagent after newsagent stepped in to say hello to the NSW based Tower team member who installed the system at their shop or last visited to provide some training. They were full of smiles and appreciation. Their reaction says something about how personal our NSW team has made their commitment to exceptional customer service.
With over 550 newsagents in NSW using Tower it would be easy for us to lose touch. That we have not and have so many happy newsagent customers is a testament to the work of Peter, Luke, Nathan, Tim, Gavin and others who have made it their business to provide exceptional personal customer service.
The Fair itself was comprehensive. It felt bigger than the Melbourne Fair a week ago – that may be the layout. It is good having the whole event in one room with nice wide aisles.
Today we saw more business than the two days in Melbourne.
In the few days since we announced the three business round table discussions we have almost filled the sessions. We are thrilled to have Tower Newsagents and non Tower Newsagents participating.
Our goal is to help newsagents make better business decisions. Session details are: Melbourne (Elsternwick) – Tuesday Aug. 28 at 10am, Brisbane – Wednesday Aug. 29 at 10am and Sydney (Miranda) – Thursday Aug. 30 at 10am. Book only by email: bookings@towersystems.com.au. We will confirm all bookings.
We have launched a new customer newsletter this month.
Produced in house using Microsoft Word and with a local feel, we have placed copies in an acrylic stand near the entrance to the shop to act as a silent marketer. This newsletter is designed for our retail traffic and with our specific demographic in mind. We are backing it up with content on our in-store plasma display.
While we have some playing to do with the layout, we’re happy with this first cut of our newsletter. We wanted to stay away from it looking to slick lest it become another polished corporate pitch document. We selected Better Homes and Gardens and Australian Women’s Weekly for focus because we like them and not because of a publisher deal – as would be the case in a more corporate newsletter.
Even though this is a monthly newsletter, we plan to freshen the content mid month.
We have been producing a newsletter link this for five months now for our Sophie Randall business – it is the only marketing undertaken for that new business. What has surprised us is the number of customers coming into the shop with the newsletter to ask about a specific product.
Checking sales of a new wedding magazine, we were surprised to have sold six copies in a week. A 33% sell-through of a wedding title in a week in our demographic is excellent. The same check revealed we have had a copy stolen. That’s not such good news. I know from data I see at my software company that theft, shrinkage the experts call it, costs an average newsagency between 3% and 5% of turnover. While we mainly focus on processes to protect against employee theft, it is valuable to be reminded that customers can and do lift product.
Sure, other magazines are stolen – these are often away from the main traffic area. They are also smaller. This title is big – certainly not something you could slip inside a jacket or into a newspaper.
Maybe we need to frisk customers as they leave.
We yesterday published a new advice sheet on how to undertake a stock take using the Tower Systems newsagent software.
I was in a newsagency recently and counted eight signs directed at customers – not including promotional posters. Of the eight, five were negative – this is not a library, no bags, do not ask for credit. One was promoting an offer but was in the same font and style as the negative signs and would, I suspect, have been viewed as negative.
We have as few signs as possible in my newsagency – certainly no negative signs. The best sign is the one photographed at each register point. It promotes phone recharge and generates good business. Since we can sell recharge from each register it is an easy and fast upsell. The small sign at eye level at each register is an excellent opportunity to connect our newsXpress branding with the phone card offer – an ideal win win. It is he sort of sign newsagents need as opposed to the negative stuff.
One of the first customers we see each day is a chap who rummages through the bin at our lottery bench where people discard used instant scratch tickets. He grabs the tickets and checks them over and over. Every couple of weeks he finds a winner. How great is that?
Newsagencies are like that. We each have customers who interact with us in ways you’d never encounter in big business. Sure, some of these interactions are annoying but they connect us with the community in a unique and vital way.
When I first found out about our bin diver my instinct was to ensure the bin was emptied before we opened in the morning. Now, if I’m there when he comes in we trade a smile and I feel good that leaving a full bin is, in part, good customer service.
I heard Neil Mitchell on 3AW this morning talking about poor customer service. The examples Neil gave were from big businesses so I emailed him saying small businesses are champions when it comes to good customer service. He read the email on air and noted that I own a newsagency. He also mentioned the good service he gets from his local newsagent. Well done whoever that is!
It is feedback like this which can help strengthen customer perception about newsagencies and newsagents. We should not be afraid to step up to the plate on talkback radio and elsewhere in the media and remind people of our commitment to exceptional customer service.
Good personal customer service is a point of diffrence we can own.
Kudos to Neil Mitchell for shaming those who provide poor customer service.
I’ve heard that Fairfax in NSW will publish a ‘bumper edition’ Sydney Morning Herald on Friday January 26 and to be on sale for the entire Australia Day long weekend for the usual Saturday price of $2.20. I would have thought that in the current newspaper market – challenged at best and decaying at worst – Fairfax would do everything possible to not upset customers. Their customers will be upset by yet another lazy Bumper Edition. Newsagents will bear the brunt of customer anger. Talk to any newsagent and they will tell you of the frustration expressed across the counter and on the phone explaining the pricing and the convoluted rules associated with the Bumper Editions this past Christmas. Bumper Editions are not good customer service.
Everywhere you turn there are reports of sales declines being experienced by newspapers. Newspapers themselves are regularly running naval gazing pieces about their own future. Publishers like Fairfax have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in online businesses which are speeding the decline. It is odd to me therefore that Fairfax would ‘play’ with their customers in this way. If they want to delay the decline they would publish each day of the Australia Day weekend. But then, maybe the financial return is better if they run a Bumper Edition and that’s more important than what the customers want.
Memo to Fairfax: You might want to let the computer companies know about your Bumper Edition plans so that they can provide advice in advance to their newsagent clients and thereby save the hundreds of phone calls which would be made otherwise.
When Ben Kay, manager of my newsagency, sold “Zelda” a syndicate entry in the $33 million superdraw they got to talking about what they would buy if either won a major prize. Ben’s dream purchase is a fast boat. “Zelda” promised to buy it for him if she won. Similar conversations are shared across newsagency counters every day. It’s a level of personal and friendly contact which is rare in retail. It’s non existent at mass merchants.
“Zelda” didn’t anything in the superdraw but she wanted to encourage Ben to keep dreaming. She brought in this envelope to the shop with a couple of photos of boats and the message KEEP ON DREAMING “MAN”.
I’m glad we have people like “Zelda” as a customer. We enjoy her company.
I hope the Victorian State Government considers the personal service newsagents offer when they contemplate changes to lottery licencees this year. I can’t imagine “Zelda” being happy about having to buy her lottery and scratch tickets from the supermarket.
In addition to selling almost 1,000 of these newsXpress calendars in our shop, we mailed 1,000 to our customers last week. The reaction has been fantastic, amazing, better than we ever expected. Customers have been coming in each day thanking us for the gift and our letter. Actually, we’re overwhelmed with the kind words coming back to us from across the counter.
It’s great handing out cash to winners in from Saturday’s $33 million lottery. Even though we didn’t sell a 1st division prize, we have been visited the last two days by many happy customers collecting anything from $25 to $2,000. I like it when you get to tell someone they have a prize when they thought they had missed out. The reactions are precious. These connections are more than transactions. They are special shared moments many of us think of once the day is over, they’re part of what small business is about.