A great way to lose customers. Today's example: 'Die Zeit'
There are many ways to lose customers and sometimes it's surprisingly easy.
The other day, I decided to subscribe to 'Die Zeit', one of Germany's leading weekly newspapers. Yes, I know it sounds strange. Who subscribes to a printed newspaper nowadays? Well, the subscription was meant to be a gift and 'Die Zeit' has a reputation for high quality journalism. The former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt is one of their publishers.
Anyway, I proceeded to subscribe online and my subscription was quickly confirmed via email.
'Die Zeit' is always published and delivered on a Thursday. At least that's what I thought! But the first issue wasn't delivered on a Thursday - November 24 to be exact - but on Friday, November 25, i.e. one day late. I complained via email and got an answer fairly quickly. The response looked like a rather 'cheap' copy and paste exercise, terrible quality and definitely not worthy of a newspaper like 'Die Zeit'. They apologized and informed me that they had spoken to the deliverer. Unfortunately that didn't solve the problem, because the next issue wasn't delivered on Thursday, December 1, but on Friday, December 2. Again, I complained via email, but this time I didn't even get a copy and paste response.
I posted two tweets as well, but apparently 'Die Zeit' doesn't check Twitter. They are on Twitter - @zeitonline - but this is obviously only used for traditional one-way communication.
You'd think that these are difficult times for old media and especially newspapers. You'd think that a newspaper would do it's very best to make sure a subscriber gets his newspaper on time. This obviously doesn't apply to 'Die Zeit'.
You can't take for granted that a former Chancellor of Germany co-publishes the newspaper of your choice. However you should be able to take for granted that a German newspaper published in Germany can be delivered to paying subscribers in Germany on the publication date. Is 'Die Zeit' unable to do that, or don't they care about a single subscriber?
It doesn't help to have spectacular 'on top' - offerings, if you fail on the basics. This is not only true for 'Die Zeit', but for all everybody trying to 'sell' a product and/or service. As a matter of fact, it's a great way to lose customers!
