By Joel Thurtell
Shhh!
Please keep this under your hat.
It’s an idea that could make me a bundle of money.
I don’t mind sharing it with you, but please, PLEASE, don’t pass it on to somebody who might steal it from me and make millions.
I’ve got an idea how to save the moribund newspaper industry.
It’s so simple, no wonder they haven’t thought of it.
Sometimes the best ideas seem just too easy.
Here it is: Newspapers are too kind to their customers. When a newspaper subscriber calls to cancel, the newspaper people are very polite. They simply take the caller’s information and cancel the subscription.
What dunderheads!
Don’t they know they’re signing their own obituary?
Don’t make it so easy.
Do what cable TV does: Haul the recalcitrants before a Loyalty Committee. Make your customers justify themselves. Why do you have the temerity to cancel?
This actually happened to me on Saturday, May 8, 2010, when I called a certain cable television company known as Comcast and asked to suspend our service.
First, I was told that we could do a “temporary suspension” for the three months or so that we’ll be away from home.
Okay, I said, how much does the “temporary suspension” cost?
Six bucks a month.
No dice, says I. Cancel us. Permanently.
No can do, the Comcast guy says.
What? says I, accustomed as I am to unctuous civility and complete obedience from my newspaper vendors.
Can’t cancel you on Saturday, says the Comcast guy.
What’s wrong with Saturday? says I.
The Loyalty Department is closed, he says.
What does that have to do with it? wonder I.
Can’t cancel without conversation with the Loyalty Department. Have to wait till Monday. Loyalty Department will interview you about why you’re cutting off our service.
Well, if I had reasons before, they’re eclipsed by this experience.
The Loyalty interview alone would make me want to cancel Comcast.
Wonder what the Loyalty folks will ask me?
Do I have to take a Loyalty Oath to get out of their clutches?
I’d call it a Disloyalty Oath.
Oh Mighty Lord Comcast, I do hereby swear that I wish to negate any connection I ever had with your misbegotten company. Oh mighty behemoth corporation which demands complete obedience, hereby accept my pledge of everlasting disloyalty.
Newspaper executives take note: You can stanch the ebb of circulation by demanding absolute loyalty from your customers and requiring them to submit to interviews before cutting off their papers.
A few bold patrons may quit, but a lot of timid people will stay with you out of fear that you’ll be mean in the exit interview.
Harken, New York Times, Gannett, McClatchy, Tribune, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, and all you other troubled purveyors of paper news.
Beat up on your customers! Don’t let them go without a fight!
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
Siz
