Subs bureaux

Peter Phippen, managing director of BBC Worldwide, said in his speech to last year’s PPA Subscriptions Conference: ‘I believe that, as an industry, our capabilities in the skills of direct selling are not yet distinctive enough to deliver growth.’ The challenges of publishing today – the continued squeeze on the newsstand, the growing emphasis on the direct relationship with the customer and the morphing of publishing companies into content providers – require some truly innovative thinking on the part of publishers and their bureaux. The good news is that there are some very exciting things happening within the sector; the bad news is that there is still a widespread perception within the publishing community that, in the march to a bright new future, publishers are leading the way and their bureaux following, and not always quickly enough.

In researching this article, I solicited the views of bureaux, publishers and consultants. This article summarises the feedback, but does, inevitably, deal in generalisations. As with any sector, there are examples of exceptional, average and mediocre service.

Publisher feedback – the positive perceptions

Bureaux are seen as doing the basics (the handling and processing of large volumes of orders) well. ‘They do it so well,’ says one publisher, ‘that they actually have a monopoly on this type of business.’ One praised his bureau for its heavy investment in IT and online functionality. Another said ‘our bureau has been incredibly successful at developing online access systems for our complex data, which even the most IT illiterate sales person can use. This level of development is an expertise we do not have in-house.’ Some respondents were effusive: ‘the excellent account handling they provide gives me further confidence in their abilities, and, on the numerous occasions we’ve asked them to do work that falls outside the traditional remit of a bureau, they have accommodated our needs every time.’

Others were positive, though not gushing. One acknowledged ‘that at least they’re getting the basics right and not upsetting our customers!’ Another conceded that ‘they’re great for handling high numbers of different types of communication and I would be loath to have to do that internally.’

Publisher feedback – the negative perceptions

One publisher found it to be a ‘very unimaginative lack lustre sector.’ Another felt that their bureau ‘did not respond quickly enough to change,’ with ‘complicated and dated systems making changes in technology very slow.’ Another felt their bureau was set in its ways and not good at ‘varying from standard practice.’ She wanted them to adopt a ‘customer focus rather than a process focus’ and to see them ‘develop marketing initiatives with publishers, with a mentality of win-win.’ Another criticised her bureau for being ‘too heavily reliant on publisher foresight; their ability to support electronic publishing models is weak and they are slow to respond to the evolution of digital editions and email renewals.’ She also found that ‘the teams providing telephone and email customer service suffered from high levels of staff turnover, low levels of commitment and lacked the appropriate skills required by publishers.’

Consultants’ view

According to Alan Weaver, ‘all the running is made by the publishers and it would be better if bureaux were more tuned into what publishers want. Yet, all the bureaux have good points and publishers need to change too. They need to involve the bureau as a partner. For instance, all too often, and this was the case ten years ago and is still the case today, the bureau does not know when the promotion is in the market place. Furthermore, they are an easy target – if something goes wrong, blame the bureau.’ Gill Lambert points to considerable improvements over the last five years, with the basics now being done very well. However, she continues, their knowledge and skill set is still focussed on processing transactional data and they need to invest more in data analysts and account management. Yet, one of the reasons, Gill says, that some bureaux struggle with new publishing models, is because publishers, themselves, are struggling too.

Jim Bilton says that ‘you get what you pay for, and it is a tight margin, process-driven business.’ He goes on to say that ‘publishers are very unclear about what they want, apart from wanting the earth.’ One theme, touched on by all three was the tendency for publishers to want more and more for less and less. The trend towards squeezing margins is, ultimately, not compatible with the demand for greater levels of proactive expertise. Karlene Lukovitz, in our March / April issue, quoted Chris Holt, president of one of the big US bureaux, as follows: ‘each of the fulfilment bureaux has a value proposition. A commodity orientation benefits publishers in short-term costs, but will work against you in the long term if we can’t invest back into the business – in technology to help you drive new revenue streams and sources.’ The situation in the UK is very similar.

There is some evidence to suggest that publishers concur with this viewpoint. Anonymous from Acton wrote that ‘publishers are also to blame, because you can get more out of the bureaux if you are able to put the time and effort in. It’s easy to be critical if you remain distant.’

So what then are the trends in the subs bureau sector?

1. Spirit of partnership
Bureaux are talking the language of proactive partnership. TW4’s Arvid Jayal says they’re in the business of providing a ‘marketing partnership’. Dovetail’s Tom Turcan dislikes the word ‘bureau’, because it sounds ‘passive and antiquated.’ He sees his company as ‘a business services company, helping publishers manage their direct to customer business.’ AI Bureau’s Angela Smith ‘keeps a close eye on both the data and the marketing efforts and is very proactive in offering advice.’ WDIS’s Steve Russell sees their ‘most successful relationships being with publishers who see us as another member of their team.’ Publishers need to engage with their bureau to see how these words translate into actions, but bureaux are making the right noises.

2. Customer service – telephone
Customer service is a key battleground. In it, there is a growing use of IVR (interactive voice response) technology and skills based routing, whereby the caller is routed to the operator best equipped to deal with the call. As in other sectors, there is a growing realisation that an over reliance on IVR can become wearisome to the caller, so, at TW4 for instance, they restrict it to single level IVR. Another trend is CLI (caller line identification) where the caller’s details appear on screen for the operator before they answer the call. CLI doesn’t always work, because subscribers sometimes mask their calls or, annoyingly, call from a different number to the one they put on their form, but it works for about 70% of calls and makes for a more productive dialogue. The operator has important advance knowledge, and has to spend less time capturing name and address information, and more time on cross and up-selling.

The use of call scripting has also helped customer service teams in this area. It is now fairly common to have pop up boxes appear on screen prompting the operator to make particular marketing offers during the call. At the moment, these offers tend to be generic offers related to the title (‘today’s offer is …’), rather than ones personalised to the caller, but that will come.

The management of customer service teams is also, deservedly, getting more attention. By the nature of the work, staff turnover is high and low morale a danger. Switched on bureaux are recognising this and investing in staff monitoring technologies (where you can remotely track an operator’s activity in real time), training, publisher briefings, incentives and scheduled breaks. Unsurprisingly, this results in lower staff turnover and better results.

3. Customer service – web
Self service is the name of the game – whereby the subscriber can manage most aspects of their account themselves online, from initial order, through address changes to renewal. Most bureaux are, to a greater or lesser extent, on this path and Quadrant’s Stuart Lacey sees the ‘drive to the web for customer communication and self service’ continuing. The variables are the amount of different customer service activities that you / your bureau are prepared (or able) to entrust to the customer, and the extent to which the transactions are real time. Real time, full service is the ideal and many bureaux are heading that direction.

4. Reporting and analysis
One of the biggest changes to the way bureaux operate in recent years, has been in the area of reporting. Gone are the days of mountainous piles of paper reports gathering dust in the corner. Reporting is now overwhelmingly electronic, with clients being able to run reports direct from their desktop, before saving them in their preferred format. Most bureaux are also providing publishers with data feeds (either to bureau managed data warehouses, to publisher controlled customer databases, or just direct to publisher marketing teams) that can be analysed and manipulated by popular database products such as Microsoft Access or specialist report and analysis tools such as Set Analyser, Viper, Crystal Reports and Fast Stats – or, indeed, by the bureau’s own proprietary software. Another trend is to offer publishers direct access to the subscriber database. The publisher might not know why he wants it, but the option of having it facilitates transparency and peace of mind.

5. Marketing
One frequent complaint of publishers is that bureaux ‘don’t do any marketing.’ Publishers need to be very clear what they mean by ‘marketing’, and this is an area where service level agreements can help. By and large, the bureau view is that product knowledge, and therefore marketing strategies and planning, is the preserve of the publisher – they can’t be expected to acquire an expertise in the markets of each of the titles they fulfil. However, what most bureaux can and do do is to focus on the provision of marketing information and best practice advice. The former is delivered through access to analysis and reporting tools and the latter is delivered through proactive account management – both in day to day contact and through best practice workshops organised for their clients.

In terms of marketing strategy, there is, though, a growing trend for the provision of specialist consultancy services. Alliance Media Services now offers circulation marketing consultancy services, in the shape of Charles Arthur and David Garratt – as does BPI Associates, through Iain Pulley, and AI Bureau, through Angela Smith. Peter Hobday thinks that all bureaux should consider setting up ‘circulation development’ sections, whose role would be to assist publishers in the marketing arena. This could involve, for instance, bureaux retaining independent consultants on their books, who might offer their services at preferential rates to the bureaux’ clients. Some bureaux are moving in that direction. ESco’s Susan Duffin says that the provision of marketing consultancy is not a ‘core business at present,’ but ‘professional consultancy is bought in if required.’

6. Product – electronically served
In the multi-source, multi-payment, multi-channel world of the future (and present) the performance of the bureau sector to date probably reflects the uncertainty in the publishing world as a whole about where everything is heading. The challenge for bureaux is to be ahead of publishers in their thinking, so that when publishers approach them with new ideas, they can present them with solutions not hurdles. This is no easy task and depends on bureaux having the skills and resource to think strategically and the expertise to translate their findings into system developments. There is no road map. The way ahead is to knock down barriers. Blue sky thinking is needed to answer the question: in how many conceivable ways will publishers wish to package and market their content in the future? Once, bureaux have answered that question then this needs to be married to current system capabilities, and the extent to which there is a shortfall defines the development task. It’s as simple as that.

7. Account management
As the trend seems to be, on the part of publishers, to view a core part of the traditional bureau offering in commodity terms, bureaux are aware that one of the key points of differentiation is in the quality of their account management teams. This can’t be over stressed. The quality of the account managers is crucial, and an account manager can make or break the relationship with a publisher. Interestingly, in the feedback I had from publishers, I got conflicting messages about one particular bureau from two different publishers. One thought the bureau in question was the best thing since sliced bread, whilst the other … didn’t. They didn’t say, but my suspicion is that one of them had a good account manager. Bureaux need to invest even more in recruiting and retaining high calibre staff in this area.

Conclusion

There are some incredibly exciting development in the industry. As Alan Weaver says, ‘the world of fulfilment bureaux is changing quite quickly – from one of transaction processing and banking, to one of customer service and marketing.’ Publishers are right to demand a lot, but should be willing to engage with their bureau as partners. If the bureau can demonstrate its commitment to enhanced service levels, then publishers should be willing to pay more to finance that investment. Bureaux need to continue to invest more, particularly in the area of online functionality, customer service and account management. Furthermore, they need to tackle the negative perceptions head on, address any real weaknesses and improve their communications so that any negative perceptions, perhaps based on misplaced expectations, can be put to rest.

I started with a quote from Peter Phippen, and, in the interests of symmetry, I will end with one. ‘We need’, he says, ‘nothing short of a revolution in our industry, if we are to be among the shapers of the future, and not the bystanders. This is a challenge that needs to be picked up by both publishers and their subscription fulfilment companies.’