READER REPRESENTATIVE

The signs were up all over campus. The Crimson seemed to have invested a lot of time figuring out how to sell more newspapers. The prices were a bargain for the big national dailies (half of what the average American pays) and, heck, there were "4 easy ways to subscribe." The Crimson even worked out a handy joint venture with The Coop, whereby students could order their papers at the checkout counter. "Geez, as long as I'm spending $500 on books this semester, why not spend another $45 and get The Boston Globe," many a victim of clever marketing thought.

But a couple weeks into the semester, several readers called to complain. It seemed The Crimson had not spent nearly as much time on perfecting their delivery system as they had spent perfecting their marketing tactics. One student even joked while lamenting her fourth straight day without The New York Times, "Last Sunday, after we hadn't received the paper for two days, we got a subscription advertisement on our door. Kind of ironic, isn't it?" A zealous law student threatened to sue The Crimson for triple damages for the two weeks of Boston Globes that had failed to arrive at his door. He fumed that poor delivery had forced him to spend $8.10 of his own money for the missing papers, that The Crimson had not even agreed to provide a refund, and that they had not been very good about returning his repeated phone calls.

On Wednesday, I went over to The Crimson for a meeting with this evil, delivery-denying, phone call-neglecting, refund-rebuffing circulation staff. This group of misfits consisted of Circulation Managers Alice S. Lee '98 and Amy M. Rabinowitz '98 and Manager of Business Services Matthew L. Kramer '98. Fortunately, the image I had formed in my mind after listening to the complaints of our readers did not match the reality. Lee, Rabinowitz and Kramer actually seemed to want the readers to get their papers.

According to Lee and Rabinowitz, many of the early problems this year resulted from key card access problems for the deliverers. For example, a deliverer trying to enter the Law School's Wyeth Hall could not get into the building.

Likewise, problems arising with The New York Times resulted from difficulty in ordering papers from the printing location in New York. With many subscriptions coming in late in the day, The Crimson staff could not gather the information and order new papers from the printing location in time for the next day. As a result, there was a shortage of papers on several days. Another cause of missed delivery was an oil slick in Connecticut.

With regard to The Boston Globe, delivery of the paper was delayed by a misunderstanding with the The Globe circulation department. The Boston paper thought the delivery date started a week later than the agreed upon date. Globe subscription prices, thankfully, did not include this first week.

On the whole, the Crimson staff assured me that they only receive seven to 10 redelivery calls each day, a rate of less than one percent in a pool of more than 1,100 subscribers--not bad for the only student paper in the country offering door-to-door delivery.

The Crimson staff acknowledged, nonetheless, that some problems were due to human error and that all problems were regrettable. I asked what the staff planned on doing about the problems.

According to Kramer, this summer the circulation staff started putting together a database which would keep track of all subscribers. The database, he explained, will be very useful in dealing with delivery problems. With the database, subscriber complaints will be stored and complaints will appear on deliverers' route lists (which the deliverers use each day). At the same time, the database will allow the staff to contact subscribers with unforseen problems at the touch of a button. Unfortunately, this database was not finished in time for the early semester rush.

For subscribers who do not receive their papers, the first thing to do is call the redelivery hotline at 495-4774. If the call is received by 11 a.m., The Crimson can, barring unforseen consequences, redeliver the missing paper(s) by 2 p.m.

Furthermore, the staff assured me that refunds will never be denied and that those students who miss papers and want a refund should contact The Crimson by electronic mail at circulation@thecrimson.harvard.edu. Checks take about a week to arrive after the initial correspondence.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.