The last year has taught me a lot about digital magazines, especially when it comes to customer care. While it's a ball-ache to do it properly (let's be honest!), it's vitally important that you do do it properly and have a strategy behind it: not only for the sake of your app's ratings in the various app stores, but to minimise churn, avoid negative social media comments and to grow your product.
Our regular digital mags have the facility for users to send us feedback direct from the app, complete with the device UDID it's been sent from (which enables a better analysis of individual reader problems, if said reader is happy for us to go down that route).
We were a little late to the game introducing this feature, doing so in an update in September. By the end of the year and some 2,000 emails later across our 50-title portfolio, we've come to realise we now have a real-time opportunity to see how people are finding the product and the problems they're experiencing (and therefore where we can improve them, quickly, by adding functionality update requirements to dev sprints). I've even got to 'know' a few customers quite well, so they now inform me directly and instantly if there are any problems with their apps, the moment they crop up.
In no particular order, here are what I would consider to be the most important facets to good digital magazine customer relations.
1. Speed of response
We have a policy to respond to complainants within 24 hours, faster if possible. I have access to our support email inbox, so I can keep tabs on things myself. No email should be ignored, even downright rude ones. In this day and age, however, 24 hours isn't good enough, so our next step forward is to introduce real-time support via web, phone and social media: hardly new ideas, but the quicker we can help readers with any tech issues they're having, the better.
2. Authority
This is slightly harder to nail. Whoever is tasked with customer service for digital editions needs to know what they're talking about. As a consumer, we've all had experiences with helplines where the person you're speaking with, frankly, is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. And that is annoying.
So, whoever mans your phones and email inboxes needs a certain level of tech expertise specific to your product, so they can speak authoritatively about it. Customer service agents need to know what's going on with the apps - the updates that are forthcoming, bugs that have been found, whether they're being fixed and what the customer needs to do (if they can) to help themselves. Or be told how soon the publisher / software supplier will fix the problem.
They need training. They need to be able to communicate with the customer, find out precisely what the problem is and then deliver a solution, if one can be delivered.
And if you don't know what the problem is you're being told about, don't try and bullshit your way out of it! Be honest with the customer, take the necessary details from them and bloody well ensure you log a ticket with IT (or your software provider) and keep in touch with the customer while the process is seen through.
3. Plain English
You have to assume that each customer knows very little about tech when you start conversing with them. So, speak or write in plain English. I call it the 'dad principle' - if your dad can understand what you're saying, you're doing ok. You soon get to know the level of expertise the customer has and can then start tailoring your responses accordingly. But being clear, sympathetic, apologetic, precise and honest are all imperative facets for any customer service agent.
4. Social
I once read that magazine readerships should be considered communities. I agree. They need to be looked after. We're nothing without them. As such, editorial teams need to be briefed as to what to do in the event of app complaints coming in on social media platforms. It's not an editorial team's job to fix, but complaints can come in from anywhere and when they do, they need to be passed to the right people as soon as possible.
Three months or so ago, we had a reader of Performance Bikes leave a pretty shocking comment about the title's Newsstand app on the brand's Facebook page. “This isn't an app. It's a CR-APP!” he screamed, adding worse profanities, having lost all his previous downloads following a major software update we'd implemented.
The editor dropped me an email informing me. The process from there was simple - an apology was posted. A contact was given for instant support. The result? Within minutes we'd worked with the customer to get his magazines back, extended his subscription by three issues gratis, and he'd posted a hugely complimentary fresh post back on Facebook saying what wonderful support he'd had and how marvellous the Performance Bikes magazine was. Win-win all round.
5. UX is as important as content
In my experience, if your content is great, people will put up with a dodgy user experience, at least for a while. But if the same problems occur again and again, regardless of how much people love your brand, you're going to lose them. By the same token, you can have the slickest app ever, but if the content is rubbish…
The upshot of which is, publishers need to pay heed to UX if they're running their own software, or badger third party suppliers / platforms if the software provided isn't good enough. Don't let the same errors happen twice. That is critical.
And finally, everybody involved in ePublishing these days needs to understand that the digital world evolves constantly. You can't stand still. The one constant of digital publishing is that it will always be changing. Just when you think you're there, something will crop up that alters things; whether it's a bug brought about by an operating system update or Google telling you to change the way you publish your apps or they'll remove you from their Newsstand.
Accept this. Embrace it. Invest in customer support and concentrate on getting the basics right.
