The Importance of Earnest Service

In his column, The Ethicist, Randy Cohen wrote recently in The New York Times, “Your wife should err on the side of caution and not take anything of value from a supplier.” The woman supervised travel for a company and she’d won the grand raffle prize of two roundtrip tickets to Japan at an event sponsored by several airlines. There were some 1,000 guests.

In my first job out of college I worked at Dun & Bradstreet writing credit reports. We were told that if a company we visited manufactured matchbooks not to take a single match, even to light a cigarette. That has been my guideline ever since.

Yet I think that Cohen is being harsh in this instance. He softens at the end of the column, noting to the husband who sent in the query, “At the least, she must disclose her winnings to her supervisors and get their green light before she packs her bags.” I’m comfortable with that.

Some in the media won’t let a PR person buy them so much as a cup of coffee. Others gather enough loot over years to fill a strip mall. Reporters and editors don’t have a lot of time to schmooze over lunch these days, nevertheless, just as business is done by some on a golf course, I can’t imagine how, for the price of a lunch or a coffee, anyone would sell their soul and run photos of horrible looking, poorly made or faulty goods in a new product column or run positive coverage of a lackluster ad campaign or sleazy business.

What about a book or movie reviewer who is sent/given a galley or invited to preview the flick? I don’t recall reading in their reviews that they didn’t pay for the book or seat at the theatre and it doesn’t bother me. What about a beauty editor sent samples that aren’t samples but entire bottles and jars? No problem in my mind. Making up samples would cost a fortune and wouldn’t provide the same experience. Packaging–how the beauty product looks and how the dispenser works–is part of the evaluation.

Full disclosure: I send promo codes to reviewers who ask for them so they can try a client’s smartphone application and have given hundreds of yards of fabric and countless rolls of wallpaper and dinnerware and flooring to be used for newspaper or magazine new product pages or to decorate a home that a magazine photographs.

Obviously, if a company pays any of the reviewers for their assessments, they must disclose this relevant piece of information, whether they write for a blog, web site, an online or print newspaper or magazine. Special sections or advertorials are paid for by the participants and are clearly identified by publishers, usually at the top of the page.

Because attitude and service are more than half of the experience, I think that a restaurant, hotel or travel reviewer should be anonymous and pay for all his/her expenses, no exceptions. 

What about stock brokers? Should they tell you that they’ve been told to push an investment by the boss?

Where do you stand on full disclosure? Do you care?

I bought a nifty yoyo at a boutique yesterday and asked for a gift bag–in this case, a very small paper bag with self-stick label to keep it closed. “That will be $1 more,” I was told. They kept the gift bag and gained my annoyance. A full-priced store that charges $10 for a yoyo should give you a gift bag.

How did stores make a profit in the past when they paid gift wrappers? Now, you’re often given a box and tissue paper to do the deed yourself. Barnes & Noble still wraps books and gifts and during the holidays, their stores invite local charities to do the wrapping–what you donate is up to you.

This brings me to American Airlines’ charging $8 for a blanket and pillow: Now, really. Aren’t we inching towards the “oh, you wanted a steering wheel with that car? That’ll cost ya,” style of business?

I got yet another renewal notice from a magazine in which my renewal rate at a “savings” was $20 for a year and the blow in card noted $15 for 12 issues. But look again at that card. In mouse type was, “plus $3 shipping and handling.” It’s enough to make you cancel the subscription, which I did.

ATM machines can be fee-scalpers too: Use another bank’s and watch out. Bank fees in general strangle a budget.

Have you bought theatre tickets online? There’s a $6 to $8 per ticket surcharge that you don’t get if you buy from the box office. That’s the surprise as you check out. It’s especially deceptive if you’ve fallen for a discount ticket promo that touts 25 to 45 percent discounts because that’s no longer the percent of the discount at all.

The head-scratcher: Doesn’t the box office staff cost the theatre money? Why charge so much more to have someone make out a label, put tickets in an envelope and slide it through a postage meter which should take less time than dealing with a whiney customer at a ticket window asking a bunch of questions. And with an email address, that cost them nothing to capture, the theatre can pester a likely suspect from now to kingdom come about upcoming shows–at no cost.

Can you imagine someone in the agency business playing similar games? “Oh, you expected me to write your press releases and select media for the $6,000/month fee? That’ll be an additional $3,000/month.” [I know, I know, some do.]

What surcharges drive you nuts? Why can’t businesses do what they should for a fair price and leave it at that?

Straws have broken this very tough and loyal camel’s back four times, leaving me no choice but to resign and move on, twice from clients and twice from jobs.

Or maybe the straws didn’t break; they directed needed light on impossible situations.

I wonder what the editorial staff of the Dallas Morning News will do–will reporters stay at their jobs because there are so few jobs left in the industry, or will they walk? I’m getting ahead of myself, if you didn’t read Richard Pérez-Peña’s article, “Some Dallas Editors Will Report to Ad Sales,”  in Friday’s New York Times.

I first heard about this situation from Carolyn Gatto on Thursday night. Carol’s always ahead of the curve. The co-founder and publisher of WeJustGotBack.com, an award-winning family travel resource, wrote the November 9 post “Service of Magazine Subscriptions” for this blog.

She sent me the link to the post in the Dallas News Blog, Dallas Observer, “At The Dallas News, a New ‘Bold Strategy’: Section Editors Reporting to Sales Managers,”  by Robert Wilonsky.

Carol, who for some 25 years edited consumer magazines, summarized the situation: “The reporting structure has changed so that editors will be reporting to glorified sales managers. The latter will, no doubt, dictate what the former can and–more importantly–cannot write.”

She continued, “I have nothing against advertorials [material that simulates editorial and is paid for by an advertiser], as long as they’re properly labeled as such, but that Dallas newspaper is going to be nothing but advertorials. I’m shuddering at the thought. Times may be tough in the newspaper industry, but don’t they still have an obligation to be honest with readers? Or am I a Pollyanna?”

As a former magazine editor and longtime PR person who holds the media in high regard, this turn of events breaks my heart. It makes a mockery of what publicists do for a living when they take a client’s product or concept and point out its newsworthiness or give relevance and validity to a new and/or mature product with the objective of catching a reporter’s or editor’s attention to inspire editorial coverage and the third party endorsement it implies.

Why does this desperate measure remind me of what happened to retail when bean counters were put in charge of talented merchandisers?  By tamping down creativity–God forbid anyone should spend a cent more than required–traffic and sales suffered,  sounding the death Nell for department stores.

What good are restaurant, movie, theatre or travel reviews in which criticism is forbidden for fear of offending an advertiser? What if a reporter in the real estate section wants to write about a crooked mortgage scam, but the bank in question is an advertiser–does the public remain in the dark? If newspapers are having trouble attracting readers now, just you wait!

I have always honored the separation between advertising and editorial. If a publisher has suggested a quid pro quo, offering my client editorial space in return for advertising support, OK, but I would never suggest it.  

What do you think of newspaper reporters whose bosses are in sales, not in editorial? Does collaboration between editorial and advertising bother you?

Carolyn Gatto, co-founder and publisher of WeJustGotBack.com, an award-winning family travel resource, was in the traditional magazine business for 25 years. She shared her recent experience and exasperation with the tangled world of magazine subscription renewals and wrote:

“I just spent 20 frustrating minutes on the phone with two different customer service folks as I tried to renew my own and a gift subscription to a magazine.

“I had to speak to two people because the first one disconnected me toward the end of the transaction. Arghh!”

Carolyn asked [and although her questions were rhetorical because she knows the answers, for the purpose of this post, I enjoyed answering them]: “Why do publishing companies send renewal reminders six months before a sub is due to expire?” My short answer: “Money. They get to use your money.” [I also wonder if you don’t get cheated on the length of the subscription by responding early. I mean, who keeps track?]

And then she asked: “Why do they offer one rate on the blow-in card, and varying rates on every renewal notice they send?” My answer: “Money. They want to get the most money they can.” 

She continued: “Why are renewing subscribers charged higher rates than new subscribers? Magazine publishing is one of the only businesses I know of that penalizes their most loyal customers.” My answer: “For money.”

But don’t let it happen to you. I noticed this discrepancy as well with a very expensive subscription to a weekly magazine I’ve enjoyed for years and I was so angry about it—incensed–that I wrote a letter and inserted the blow-in card with a low rate for first-time subscribers, the renewal notice quoting a higher rate and a check for the lower amount. They cashed the check and sent the magazine.

Carol concluded: “Is it any wonder the industry is in such dire straits?”

Do you have similar subscription tales? Are there other industries that penalize loyal customers?