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New Globe delivery company says it could take up to six months to get circulation back to normal
By adamg on Sun, 01/03/2016 - 10:10pm
And then maybe it can offer the service improvements it promised. The Globe self-reports tonight on a "finger pointing" emergency meeting between execs at the new delivery company and Globe officials who said they never imagined 10% of readers would stop getting their papers (not the 5% the Globe had said was the case last week) - and never would have made the switch if they'd known.
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Comments
Wow
First, it is good to finally see some honest reporting on this issue.
That said, 6 months! And the company warned (or so they claim) that there would be utter chaos for months after the changeover and the Globe still went along!
Oh, it's going to be a long, slow march to the grave. I hope you all like reading commentary from Jonah Goldberg, since he is the best writer one would find on the editorial pages of the Herald.
Honest? Not completely
In the "honest" article, the Globies are still claiming the switch to a new vendor was in part to improve service and reduce the number of people who experienced missed deliveries. But what we hear from everyone commenting here and elsewhere is that service was extraordinarily good and consistent, and was so for many years. So the Globies appear to be lying.
The real reason for the switch to the new company was to save money (and perhaps kill a potential union, as has been reported elsewhere).
And we are seeing a classic case of you get what you paid for.
Saving money was mentioned in that article
Along with the claim that Henry said he'd plow that money back into the Globe.
Well
That is the company line, same as if EMC or Proctor and Gamble claimed it, that's what you have to report.
The he said-she said bickering, true failure numbers, and horrid timeline is what made it an interesting article.
Staff are now delivering
Staff are now delivering papers for below minimum wage outside their job description. John Henry is laughing to the bank.
not good enough
in some areas. My family was not consistently receiving the paper south of the City. They had been complaining for awhile.
Where's Mr. Henry
Is anybody managing that clown village? they apparently wrote a contract without a required level of service.
This is the side of the Globe that makes money. WTF!
Where is Mrs. Henry?
She is the "Managing Director" of the Globe. I wonder if she's even step foot in the building.
John Henry's Hammer
This has been little talked about in all of this. He puts his child-bride in charge of something that as far as I can tell she has no experience in managing. She's not an idiot but it seems like she's a rich kid who has been bouncing around from thing to thing. What kind of journalism experience or training does she have? For that matter, what kind of business management track record does she have?
I'm amazed that nobody has tried to look long and hard at what is going on with the Globe. A Saturday edition that doesn't exist. Editorial standards dropping (in my opinion). Their response to the general decline of print media being finely distilled incompetence. And this wizened old rich guy who's bought out everything around him but seems so out of touch with reality... It's like a Greek tragedy. Would make a great Netflix series or something. If the Sox crap out this year he better watch his back.
“I said ‘I cannot describe to
Why do I find it very hard to believe these exact words were said to Globe officials before this company was hired?
Maybe
if this whole debacle was based on union busting (as has been reported) , the decision makers at the Glob thought that the potential union was a greater evil than losing customers. So maybe the new vendor did warn the Glob and they just went ahead anyways..
Union busting? How so?
Newspaper deliverers aren't unionized.
Uh there are unionized
Uh there are unionized newspaper deliverers, and as mentioned above the blocking of the employees from forming a union is text book busting
Anyone using the term "Glob"
Anyone using the term "Glob" for the local Boston broadsheet probably believes everyone is in a union and needs to be afraid of them.
Unions
But they should be. I would happily pay a little more for my Globe to be delivered by folks who are treated fairly.
Tomorrow's headline
"Globe staffers update resumes, LinkedIn accounts"
2-star edition
I guess this explains the 2-star (distant suburb) edition I got in Somerville today- Didn't notice until I was looking at the scores in the sports section and realized they didn't have anything that ended after about 8 o'clock Saturday night
It doesn't matter if all papers get delivered.
It's the effort that counts. Everyone gets a trophy.
I'm super annoyed. I usually
I'm super annoyed. I usually steal my neighbors paper and it was not delivered until long after his lazy ass woke up at 11am.
You need to tell us more, BG
I find it very hard to believe that it's only 5-10% affected. ACI seems like some crummy outfit that lowballed a bid to get the job. How can this be going on a week without a peep out of ACI? And it's not like ACI is trying their best and missed a few; remember, the Globe actually has a list of affected customers that they're trying to deliver to. And is management stepping in, too?
All I know is that I didn't get my paper, and I'm not far from the Boston Globe HQ. If I don't get it next Sunday I'm just cancelling. I've tried to remain loyal but without satisfying answers this is absurd.
P.S. Why isn't the Herald having a field day with this?
Does the Globe control Herald's printing?
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/media_marketing/2013/06/globe_press...
ugh that figures
Still, distribution isn't printing, so I'm a bit curious.
Has the Globe never negotiated a contract?
I can't believe someone at the Globe signed a contract that carries no performance penalties for the first three months with this outfit.
Pretty much means they could not deliver the paper at all and still get paid by the Globe.
Also interesting that in this article they've upped the impact from 5% of subscribers mentioned in the first article.. to 10% in this article... and acknowledged for the first time that there was a monetary reason for the move.
Now. I'd love for someone at the Globe to answer whether or not the distribution center was moved to better serve subscribers in higher income areas.
They Hired Keolis, too?
Haven't we seen this movie before?
I'd love to see some real reporting on this
That article is sort of hard to believe.
How could the executives be so unaware of what's going on that they were surprised to find 10% of subscribers were not receiving their papers? And I absolutely do not believe that the number is that low.
I wonder who is giving them the numbers? They are not getting good tracking on their "Delivery Issue" page or their customer service "live chat" and phone lines because the web page is usually broken, the "live chat" is usually down, and it's not possible to get through on the phone lines.
They mention that large numbers of people are not cancelling. The only reason I haven't cancelled (Day 8, no paper) is that there's no way to do that. You have to do it by phone & the phone line just sends you to a busy signal. (I tried sending an email but just get an auto-reply, promising to resolve my issue within 24 hours. That started a week ago, no real response yet.)
I can't tell if they are lying or they are really getting very bad information.
Is subscription on a credit card?
Call the CC company and dispute the last charge. The CC company doesn't have a delicate relationship with the newspaper like government does.
I did that
I did dispute the charge with the credit card company, and they issued a credit, no problem.
It made me feel better, but I really just want my newspaper delivery.
There is a lot more to this
There is a lot more to this story that this Globe article meticulously dances around. Today's article is a clear attempt to get out ahead of the blame game.
Its so annoying hearing them try to say that this switch was made in an attempt to improve service (and save some money). It was ONLY to save money. You outsourced jobs for wage decreases. You tossed a legion of good, honest, RELIABLE workers to the curb.
The conspiracy theorist in me says:
A) The rush to switch to a distributor that is so outrageously unprepared and understaffed tells me something went very wrong with the former distributor. Contract negotiations? Did they withhold their delivery routing maps? I've heard internet commenters claiming their old (very reliable) delivery guys are trying to get their routes back from ACI and are unable. That sounds fishy...
B) This is all a John Henry ploy to get folks who are on the fringe of switching to digital subscription to finally make the leap. The first step in the plot to lay off all the print press plant workers.
the exciting world of newspaper distribution
There is more to the story, but it goes back to when the Globe took over the Herald's printing and delivery, and is pretty tightly wound around the general tragedy that is the buggy-whip storyline of the newspaper industry. I'm not up on all of it but a friend of mine who has been involved in it will babble nonstop over beer about it. (My alcoholism is overcome by my boredom with the topic so I haven't really gotten the whole story. You can go drink with him if you want...) But same pay for twice the work has never been a popular workplace strategy.
But I do believe Henry when he says he was planning on not pocketing the big savings he was going to make by switching distributors, but was going to plow it back into the company. Really, they need everything they can do to keep the boat afloat. I don't believe that this is a ploy to get people to switch to all digital. At least if it is, they're really mistaken. I would never pay for access to the on-line version for the Globe. I pay to have the paper at my doorstep everyday while the coffee is brewing. If I'm paying for on-line content it will be far better than what they put out in general and certainly better organized than the shit-fest that is bostonglobe.com/boston.com.
Globe Direct
I was just saying to my husband this morning that the Globe should use whoever the vendor is for Globe Direct. God knows that those soggy bundles get delivered without fail, even when they are not wanted.
Globe Direct changed delivery too
for the winter at least; the PO will be delivering the weekly flyers. Globe Direct put a notice in the bag about 2 weeks ago.
I was thankful that the flyers and plastic bags would not be collecting in the yard for awhile.
Cynical corporate(y) stuff
I'm not a Globe subscriber. That being said, this sounds like one of those ploys where the management/ownership of the company intentionally makes a change that requires other employees to be even more productive (Globe employees volunteering to deliver the paper). What choice do the employees really have? It's my understanding that subscriber-ship is in decline; my guess is there is probably downward pressure on employee pay and raises within the Globe offices; and if enough people cancel their subscriptions, revenues go down and that means employees will need to be let go.
Subscribership tends to be in decline
in businesses where customers are trying to give you money for a service and you are not giving them said service.
This happens a lot in my line of business, and it drives me nuts. Take the money when it's offered! Give people the stuff they ask for! Business 101.
Where do retired MBTA employees go after their 20 years?
Now we know! Especially the managers, supervisors, and logistics people.
And Former BPS School Bus Coordinator
Got hired to map the delivery routes.
You only had one job... ONE job...
A newspaper-delivery company that only takes six months to figure out how to deliver newspapers... Okay, then.