What she says, in spades.

 

The job varies so much, depending upon magazine/journal and publisher or subscription agent (some magazines outsource their subscription collecting).

If you are doing it as a way of saving money, that is likely not going to happen.  The time you put into keeping track of each entity is way going to outweigh what you would pay a vendor.

 

What surprises me about this part of my workload is how difficult some publishers make it to subscribe.  I may not get renewal notices (more often I get multiple renewal notices, which is also Not Helpful); websites can be horrid to transverse and the people who answer the phone may or may not have the authority to accept credit card payments.  (I think I needn’t mention difficulties in understanding language.)

 

One example, not the worst by any means - yesterday I renewed our _Nameless_ subscription.  Had a renewal notice in hand.  Went online, could not find a “renew my subs” location.  “Subscribe” yes, but that I do not want.  I need to renew a subscription that expires with the December issue.  Used Customer Service.  Enter my last name.  OK - the mailing label is “COFRIN LIB/SERIALS DEPT, UNIV OF WISCONSIN GREEN BAY”.  Which of those is my last name?  I chose “DEPT” because it is the last word on the first line.  And account number, which is not indicated on the renewal notice, though there is a string of 36 numbers embraced by letters on each end.  I tried various permutations of that, all to no avail. 

 

So I stopped, and located a telephone number (from my notes, could not locate one online under Customer Service, or under Contact Us) and called them.  I get Voice Mail.  After a full minute of RecordedMachineVoiceThatWeAreSureCoversEverythingbutSaysNothingAboutPayingARenewalOrInvoice, I started pressing O.  In total, I did that for at least another minute.  (I have learned that will often, though not always, bring a Live Person).   I ended up hanging up, dialing again, and pressing O immediately.  After 10-or-so presses, I did get A Person.  And she was able to accept payment.  I attached a post-it to the invoice stating “paid by cc”, the date & time, and the person’s name.

 

When I got home last night, there was a confirmation letter from (that pub), thanking me for my renewal.  To my personal email address, which they have because I have a personal subscription.

 

So this morning I went back on the website, to customer service, and used that to email them, and told them they have the wrong email attached to the library subscription.

 

And honestly, this is not An Awful Tale, as customer tales go.  I’ve dealt with entities which I tried, literally for days, to get someone on the line that could take my payment.

 

I will add, I paid for about 20 subscriptions yesterday afternoon & spent a little over an hour.  I had two invoices from our vendor, which constituted 16 titles, and 4 individual renewals.  The two vendor invoices (EDI) took about 10 minutes; the others took a good hour.

 

The advice I add to Abbigail’s, is twofold:  1) Save your mailing labels.  Anything that comes in a wrapper, we save the wrapper, or portion thereof with the mailing label.  You often need numbers off that if there is an online facet to your subscription, and having the Exact Way the Label Reads is invaluable.  My students set those aside at checkin and file them regularly, taking out the previous label as the new one is filed.  2) Keep copious notes.  Who you talked to, (if you did actually get to talk to someone, or whose voicemail you were directed to),  when (date & time) and callbacks, etc. 

 

Good luck!

 

 

 

 

We do that with some titles at my small college.  I usually don’t have any problems getting what I claim as long as you have your customer number, your payment information up to date, and everything neatly organized.  Sometimes I have problems getting renewal notices from publishers and I miss a deadline, but the key is to keep very good records, check diligently and harass publishers when you know something needs renewed but you haven’t heard from them yet.    I also keep a list of contacts from each publisher in case I get stagnant service using their generic customer service email or phone #

 

 

Abbigail Stauber

acgregg@geneva.edu

McCartney Library – Geneva College

3200 College Ave, Beaver Falls, PA 15010

Phone: 724-847-6693

Fax: 724-847-6687

 

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From: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG] On Behalf Of Robert Terrio
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 8:40 AM
To: SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG
Subject: [SERIALST] Ordering direct from publishers

 

 

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