by Melinda Gipson
Gipson is NAA's director of new-media business analysis.

Bought a wedding gift online lately? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. One bride whose registration I perused on williams-sonoma.com probably doesn’t have a clue that this site was virtually inaccessible on the three weekdays when I tried it. On the weekend, it did offer a goodly list of affordable items. But after I ordered, I checked to see whether my gifts had been recorded as purchased, and they had not. A phone call to the company unearthed the information that it would take eight hours for the list to update. Not good for a Saturday two weeks before the wedding.

Meanwhile, crateandbarrel.com operates like a dream. I can find the couple by typing just a last name and a wedding month. No wonder that virtually every item on the wish list had been bought! I’m told by the recipient that the gifts arrived at the correct address with cards crediting the giver and bearing a UPC for returns.

That’s customer service. So what makes customer service so hard for publishers? There are many technologies to make this magic.

In Dallas, Chris Feola, Belo Interactive technology vice president, waxes eloquent about what he calls “enterprise directories.” These can be either single or integrated databases of customers that catalog the ways you touch them and what they want from you, including anonymity. He describes a world where subscribers are instantly recognized and their requests managed electronically; where online readers are afforded anonymity if they choose, but awarded personalization when they prefer.

The anonymous part is hard; about the only way we currently have of tagging users by their content and buying preferences is with “cookies,” and these are neither standard or useful across sites for multiple advertisers. Most tagging systems for the World Wide Web are maintained by proprietary third parties.

A simple registration system for online users would go a long way to bringing this information in house and making it useful. Faced with the economic slowdown, several online publishers have raced to throw up barriers to their sites, often skipping registration (see Many Internet Surfers). The Post-Bulletin in Rochester, Minn.; The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Lewiston Tribune Online in Idaho; and the Grosse Pointe (Mich.) News have instituted a range of registration procedures and fees, and Belo has plans to register users. The New York Times made a tidy business out of registration and was, for a while, the only free site that required users to swap demographics for access. Advertisers eat it up.

Having the news online represents a value. The user ought to be willing to exchange information. If he wants a personal experience, he can be recognized. If she doesn’t subscribe, she should count on promotional offers coming her way. If he does, he can begin the one-to-one, customer-centric relationship that registration offers.

Electronic-circulation systems could operate as self-service customer-relations managers. On the Web, they could allow a subscriber to regulate delivery during summer vacations. In this vein, at best, some publishers route e-mail to their circulation departments. Letting customers do this online pays dividends in labor costs.

To be effective, such a system should convey status online. Belonging to this exclusive club could give the user free access to the archives, coupons and shopping discounts, the ability to post messages and pictures in online forums, or one-click sweepstakes registration.

Some day, these users could go online to configure sections of the paper they want on their porches or identify their mobile devices for classified-ad delivery.

Knowing who users are only becomes valuable if we use it to offer better service. Companywide customer identity and service—that’s a marriage made in heaven.

We’ve made enterprise directories the subject of an intense study by the New Media Federation and the Technology Committee’s new-media task force. Please share your ideas with me.

[ Presstime Magazine ]