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You'd think newspapers these days would love people to sign up for subscriptions
By adamg on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 2:04pm
Sean Graham has been a bostonglobe.com digital subscriber for years. His wife decided she wanted to start getting the actual Sunday paper. You'd think that would be easy. You'd think wrong. Graham describes, in excruciating detail what happened this past week, in the course of numerous phone calls and online chats with Globe reps: They cut off his digital subscription, reactivated it, then then gave it to somebody in Wellesley, then they didn't deliver his Sunday paper today. And they still haven't gotten his delivery address right.
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Comments
Hmm
I'm guessing the two are not the same.. or different departments with different systems. So of course it would be difficult.
Maybe they should just hand it over to Globe Direct. Those things still keep coming no matter how many times I call and ask them not to come (because I already receive the one flyer I want.. Market Basket.. via US Mail). But week after week they go from the front hall to the recycle bin.
Random ramblings
-- Why can I not add a print subscription myself, online, without involving a customer service rep? --
How else can they tell you about "exciting" offers "because you are a "valued customer" without you being able to click them away?
Anyhoo... If you use Mozilla Firefox, you can read all the Globe articles online without a subscription if you choose "No Page Style". The links will be disabled but the articles are complete with pictures.
I used to deliver the Globe for a VERY short time in the 90s. J Paul Getty Jr had a house..err compound on my route. Most of my route was multi-millionaire territory. I bet if I lasted until Christmas that year, some supervisor would find a reason to take over my route to scoop up the tips. Rich folk are all kinda weird in their way but the creepiest was the catatonic woman-child with the two dobermans.
Same thinks works for Safari
Same thinks works for Safari's "Reader" mode on bostonglobe.com
Chrome as well
After 5 articles used up go to punch in "globe" in search field then hit remove all, then hit F5 and read moar gloob.
New York Times
I had a similar problems with The New York Times, which, of course, owns the Globe, a few years when I was living in Canton. I was subscribed to the Sunday Times for a whole two months before giving up on it. During that short time, there were a few Sundays it didn't come at all, one Sunday I received the Globe instead and the days the Times actually came it was after 10:00 am. Useless.
Owned
The Times hasn't owned the Globe in awhile.
The Globe has outsourced
The Globe has outsourced their customer service to the Philippines. So that may explain why it's hard to get anything done. I'm not saying the the Filipinos are incompetent, but overseas customer service operations have a really high turnover.
You would think that genius John Henry would have learned his lesson after replacing the competent, efficient delivery service with some lost-cost operation. Remember that disaster a few years ago? People weren't getting their papers for weeks.
"the competent, efficient delivery service"
I didn't have that experience at all when I was a subscriber, quite a few years ago.
In my eyes it's replacing one sucky service with a suckier service, but the former was by no means competent.
Not all of this is the Globe's fault
If I read his account right, he asked for home delivery, yet never updated his address when he did it. So, basically he griped about how he resumed delivery to his old address.
Nope, I wasn't resuming
Nope, I wasn't resuming anything. I never had any delivery service. And I was either was never asked what address I wanted it delivered to or I was asked and the information wasn't recorded by the rep. (I can't remember which is the case, because at the time, the specific details of the call didn't seem all that important).
Here's what you wrote
Let's be honest, here. Don't you think you might be A LITTLE at fault when you didn't bother to see what street address the Globe had when you asked them to deliver a paper to your house.
You could make that argument.
You could make that argument. I don't agree with it, but you could make it.
Seems to me that when a 5-year customer who has never had ANYTHING delivered to their house calls to order a product, good customer service would be to ask what the shipping address should be as opposed to assuming it is the same as the billing address.
Either they didn't ask, or they did ask, and failed to record it correctly.
And home delivery service is still iffy
I live in a residential condo that has a similar address to a commercial condo complex nearby. Practically every week, I get a Globe on one day, and occasionally a Herald, or sometimes a Wall Street Journal. I like my free gifts.
boston sunday globes
does anyone else miss that big fat paper being on the front porch every sunday? everyone in the family would grab a section and by the end of the day all sections had been shared. peter gammons was king and the sports section was full of extensive coverage of all sports. the news sections, metro and world news, the arts section! the internet sucks!!!!
The sports section was full
The sports section was full of sports? NO WAY!
way
n/t
It's been ten weeks now
It's been ten weeks now since they managed to deliver my Sunday Globe and I've been at the same address for 23 years, with Globe delivery service the whole time, though a few years ago I switched to digital plus Sunday because there was so little actual news that it didn't seem worth the $50 a month. Each week I report a missed delivery and each week they give me a credit. I've emailed with customer service and they called me several times - during the day, during the week - to see if I got my paper but of course I'm never home then to talk to them. One time when I tried to call on Sunday morning, there were literally 34 people in the phone queue ahead of me. Globe Direct, however...
Instead of figuring out new ways to steal stuff
... has anyone else been hearing for calls to ACTUALLY SUBSCRIBE to news providers so good journalism doesn't all vanish, especially in a time when we may need it most (i.e. as our president-elect settles in)? I hear that people are having trouble with their hard copy papers and I agree the Globe is not great at handling that part of the business. But seriously: not being willing to pay the miniscule amount charged for digital subscriptions? How cheap ARE you guys? PS John Oliver has devoted a lot of time to this topic; worth taking a look.
Globe Delivery
I had several problems with Globe delivery and a similar experience with Customer Service. One time I sent a check for 3 months delivery and was only credited for 1 month. This means that they don't do basic checking. I kept calling and asking for a manager and I finally hit the one person who knew what she was doing. Don't lose hope!