ACP Media - Case study

NZ Post Future Post Programme
Case Study: Delivering Magazines on Time
Customer: ACP Magazines Ltd (formerly ACP Media Ltd)

"For leading publisher ACP Magazines (formerly ACP Media) ensuring more than 100,000 subscribers receive their magazines on time makes for happy customers and ongoing subscriptions. So when the company heard about the proposed introduction of new postcodes, it wanted to make sure that its customers would benefit early and avoid any disruption to its service."

Participating in New Zealand Post’s Address Accuracy Programme helped ACP Magazines plan for and take advantage of the necessary updating of its database. The publishing company validated the names and addresses of its active and lapsed subscribers, and added a new postcode field with the help of its IT partner Axciom. Working closely with New Zealand Post, ACP Magazines benefited from quick responses to concerns and the advance release of information.

About ACP Magazines

ACP Magazines is New Zealand's leading magazine publisher with three divisions publishing 20 magazines, covering a range of genres from lifestyle and current affairs to magazines for men including titles such as Woman's Day, Metro, Auto Trader and Property Press. It also produces several online titles including autotrader.co.nz and taste.co.nz. ACP Magazines is a subsidiary of ACP Magazines Limited in Australia, a division of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited.

Group Circulation and Research Manager Steve Lowe is responsible for ensuring its publications reach more than 100,000 mail-based subscribers on time.

“Our subscribers expect to see their magazine sitting in their letterbox on the day it’s supposed to arrive and we don’t want to disappoint them.”

Ensuring Consistent Delivery

When the opportunity to take part in New Zealand Post’s early adopter Address Accuracy Programme arose in late 2005, ACP Magazines decided to participate for the benefit of customers – to ensure they would not experience any disruption to delivery. It also wanted to avert a situation where customers might inundate the call centre with concerns when the new postcodes were announced to the general public.

“Participation in the programme meant we could avoid any potential confusion by approaching our customers beforehand and reassuring them that everything was under control. We also knew that using postcodes correctly would improve our magazine delivery, so we’d be better off than we were before,” says Lowe.

Resolving Database Concerns

A further driver in ACP Magazines’ decision was a need to upgrade its current subscriptions database. Duplicated entries existed where some subscribers who received multiple magazines had slight variances in the name or address resulting in separate database entries for each subscription.

“We couldn’t assume they were one person so we had to verify the data manually. We realised it would be more efficient to validate the existing entries simultaneously while updating the postcode fields,” says Lowe.

Another concern was the limitations of the current database and whether fields could be inserted for the transitional period between uploading the new postcodes and when they became operational. ACP Magazines turned to an IT partner to deliver this successfully.

Getting the Logistics Right

As part of the process, ACP Magazines selected IT partner Axciom to manage the technical requirements of modifying the database. Axciom provides customer and information management systems similar to that which ACP Magazines already uses and was able to build a new field into its current system.

“Advantage is essentially our backend database, and we’ve bolted on a product called Quick Address which verifies the addressing information for new customers against the New Zealand Post Postal Address File (PAF), before the details are saved in to our system,” says Lowe.

“Axciom cleansed around 200,000 database entries for active and recently active customers,” adds Lowe.

With the local IT systems run by its parent company in Australia, Lowe also had concerns that managing the implementation remotely would hinder the process.

“Our IT department is based in Australia and they were largely responsible for inputting the data. In the end there were only a few minor technical issues but nothing that couldn’t be handled easily.”

Taking Time to Plan

Initially, ACP Magazines anticipated that implementing the new postcodes would take two months but in reality Lowe says it took the company that long to understand what the project would entail.

“To mitigate risk, we ensured our planning was as fluid as possible to give us plenty of time to deal with anything unexpected. The most important thing was to keep the process customer centric and ensure our communications plan effectively informed customers of our intentions,” says Lowe.

A crucial element for ACP Magazines in considering when to activate the postcodes was the timing of the New Zealand Post announcement.

“We didn’t want to release the information too early, such as before New Zealand Post had made the announcement, or we knew we would receive huge numbers of customer calls questioning their postal codes,” says Lowe.

By keeping in close communication with New Zealand Post and receiving copies of the marketing collateral ahead of its public release, ACP Magazines was able to forward plan. This early engagement was also essential to allow integration of other activities into the process.

“Having the information helped when we re-branded our magazine division; we’re now ACP Magazines. In the re-brand we included new postcodes for our Auckland and Wellington offices, as well as any other mail touchpoints. We also had to reprint business cards and stationery for 200 people which now all have the updated postcodes,” says Lowe.

Prior to learning of New Zealand Post’s announcement date of 1 June 2006 for the new postcodes, ACP Magazines had been working with its addressing partner, Quick Address, to ensure it had an update ready for the end of May.

“It was great timing as we knew that when customers learned of their new postcodes we would already have the information in our system,” says Lowe.

Communication Key to Success

While keeping in regular contact with New Zealand Post, the publishing company had to consider how and when it would communicate the changes to its customers, staff and suppliers.

Meetings with front line staff ensured they were informed prior to the public announcement and understood the changes.

“Our staff were given all the information that they needed to respond to customer enquiries responsibly and reassure customers we had their correct addressing information,” says Lowe.

For ACP Magazines it was important that customers were aware of what was happening and were not caused any undue anxiety.

“We included an advice on the addressing sheet that went out with magazines after 1 June. The message was fairly straightforward and reassuring - we had their information and their service would not be disturbed,” says Lowe.

After the new postcodes were introduced, ACP Magazines received very few calls from customers inquiring about the changes.

“However, we have found that new and existing customers are still unsure about their new postcodes. To help our customers we have linked our website to the postcode locator on the New Zealand Post website,” he says.

Positive Working Relationship with Post

While the new postcodes have provided few immediate benefits for the company, Lowe is pleased with how well the operational team at New Zealand Post worked to provide ACP Magazines with information and an early release of the data.

“Where ever possible New Zealand Post gave us advance warning of its plans which certainly made life easier and helped to ensure that when we went live everything went smoothly. Now all we have to do is continue to manage the process,” concludes Lowe.

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