I came home from work Tuesday and my Dowagiac Daily News was not in my mailbox.
I became a subscriber last week just to see what kind of service we are able to provide through postal delivery. We get a few complaints from subscribers in the course of each week, usually with the greatest issue in Niles. It took less than a week for me to personally have a delivery issue. Surely this cannot be a weekly issue for each of our subscribers?
In a way, most of what we do is provide customer service. As the leader of this operation, I have the daunting responsibility to make sure we provide outstanding customer service every day. While we succeed most of the time we strive to provide excellent customer service every day in all we do.
We are one of the few businesses that manufacture a product everyday and throw it out and then begin from scratch the following day. We conduct interviews; write countless words, trying to get our quotes correct; put it all together in a nice package; get it to the press and make all of the adjustments to get the printing as perfect as possible. Then there is our work with advertisers to help them create messages that you may find helpful.  Or they provided printed material that we must carefully zone to reach the neighborhoods near the business. A great deal of work goes into the production of a newspaper. After the newspapers are properly sorted and labeled Tiffany arrives at 5 a.m. each morning to make certain the local post offices get the newspapers in time for same day delivery.
After all of that, I still did not get my Dowagiac Daily News. I must admit when I hear a complaint it is troublesome. When I personally have a delivery issue it is even worse. I wonder how often the post office does not deliver our newspapers on time?
Delivery of the Leader has been problematic, although distribution manager Cindy Klingerman has done a heck of a job getting things in order. Our complaints range from people getting the Leader who do not want it, to those who want it but cannot get to it with the mess the Leader becomes when it is not properly delivered. With this product we work with independent carriers that run their own delivery businesses.
Our only recourse for consistently poor service is to sever contract agreements. This has happened a few times in the past six months. We believe we have a great group of contracted carriers.
Soon we will solicit your help in recognizing the carrier of the month based on outstanding service.
As I write this on Wednesday morning, I wonder if I’ll come home to two editions of the Dowagiac Daily News in my mailbox?