A well-functioning subscription management system is vitally important to NRC
A well-functioning subscription management system is vitally important to NRC. Not only because this system is necessary to get daily news to readers, but also because more than half of the newspaper's income comes from subscribers.
NRC
NRC has around three hundred thousand subscribers; around six out of ten have a digital subscription or a combination of paper and digital. Together, all subscribers pay more than half of the income, the rest comes from advertisers and the webshop, among others. When NRC (Handelsblad) left PCM 12 years ago and continued independently with the help of an investment fund, the entire administration had to be detached from the PCM infrastructure. At the time, the Socho Zeno package was chosen for subscription administration. Marnix van Buuren: “The system does what we need and it does well. So we see no reason to use another system. In fact, we've just completed a number of projects that will help us get even more benefit from Zeno.”
Webshop linked
Handling the financial side of the webshop is one of those projects. Until recently, the webshop used its own administrative system, which turned out to be different in essential ways.
Connecting two systems together is a precarious job, especially if the store remains open during the renovation. Van Buuren: “The subscribers and NRC should not actually notice that they are working. When it's realized, and certain features work differently for that, we'll alert users and hope they'll be pleasantly surprised. At Socho, it is also clear that these services should not be down for long. We have no agreements about how much downtime is acceptable, because we know that they are fully committed to resolving any glitches. If you're going to discuss numbers and agreements, I think you're already too far apart. That's exactly what they think about at Socho, so if anything happens, we'll immediately start working on a solution together.”
Relatively little customization was required to connect the webshop to Zeno; Zeno already contained all the options that NRC was looking for. The configuration, the data exchange at the interface between the two systems and the preparation of the reports was still a lot of work. The webshop had its own business rules, which were often just different from those for subscription registration. “This involves, for example, checking that the phone number contains the correct number of digits. When registering subscriptions, we have a strict check on the bank number, the IBAN. That was looser with the webshop. Now we have equalized that and the control there has also become very tight.”
“Before even a rule was programmed, we first consulted extensively with Socho. They wanted to know exactly what requirements and expectations we had, what the existing webshop could already do and how it liked it, etc. After that, we discussed the best solution and how we could achieve it. We don't say: we want it this way and nothing else and they don't say: this is what we have to offer, you just make do with it. On the contrary, everything is well discussed, with Socho also keeping an eye on our business case: does the solution offered really contribute to NRC's business?”
From evening to morning newspaper
With over 215,000 subscribers to the paper newspaper, it is important that Zeno communicates seamlessly — automatically — with the systems of the various distributors. “Processing the daily changes is already quite a job, but when it was decided to only publish NRC as a morning newspaper, there was a considerable challenge,” says Marnix van Buuren. “The daily changes include, for example, that people take or cancel a subscription, that they stop delivery for the holidays, or that they move. This all affects the delivery drivers, so updates must be sent to distributors every day. So we already communicate a lot with our distributors. But it also goes the other way. We can face emergencies, for example when a truck with newspapers has an accident or breakdown and gets stuck. Then not only should distributors know that the newspaper will arrive later in a certain region, an alternative must also be found to get enough newspapers to that destination as quickly as possible. And above all, customer service must be able to inform affected subscribers and an email must be sent to those customers automatically.”
Three-step transition
The fact that communicating with distributors is a complex process is even more important now that NRC will soon no longer publish a morning and evening newspaper, but only a morning newspaper. This transition takes place in steps. First, NRC.next became the morning edition of the NRC, with some editorial differences still present. In April, when the entire operation is completed, there will be one paper newspaper, in addition to a number of different digital products.
Because the conversion is both technically a delicate process and one that evokes reactions from subscribers, it was carried out in three (increasingly larger) steps. “In the first phase, a very limited group of around 1,500 customers in two regions was notified and converted. We have analysed the subscribers' reactions. We did expect resistance, but the number of cancellations was not too bad, and some came back after a while. Nevertheless, we saw a number of points where communication could be better. What it meant for the system to process so many mutations at once was also extensively analyzed and extensively tested. That was certainly not disappointing either: the processes for billing, distribution and automatic message sending were implemented without significant errors.”
“After that first phase, we made a number of adjustments in the conversion process, but also in the communication surrounding it. After that, we did a second, much larger batch. We are also now analyzing that process in order to fine-tune the latest things, so that we transferred around 90,000 subscribers to morning delivery on April 25.”
Small ICT team
NRC employs hardly any hardcore ICT technicians: one technical application manager. The rest of the ICT staff knows what is possible and how NRC can use it as efficiently as possible, but they don't write a line of code. Van Buuren: “Internally, we know what we want to have, but through consultation with our suppliers and key users, we discover how we want to achieve that. After completion of the adjustments, these key users therefore mainly test the substantive effect of the innovations and not whether what has been agreed has been delivered. It's nice that the Socho developers are also consultants: they talk to us about the business case and then know how to implement it perfectly in the system.”
Everything is well discussed, with Socho also keeping an eye on our business case: does the solution offered really contribute to NRC's business?
This article will appear in March 2022 on inct.nl
