May We Help You?

While I was watching the Sixers beat up on the Nets Thursday night, something strange started happening. Right in the middle of plays, the cable system to which I subscribe would abruptly go into a local commercial break, playing promos for the system and cheesy local commercials in low-definition Stretch-O-Vision for several minutes, then rejoining the game in progress, missing several plays. It was obviously a local switching problem; local breaks in cable programming are triggered by the network, but TNT wouldn't be triggering those breaks during play. So I tweeted at the cable system's help account to alert them of the problem, and, after a delay, initially got back a denial that there was anything anyone could do about it. A few back-and-forths got an admission that, well, maybe I had a point, and the higher-ups would be alerted. At least it wasn't a close game, so I didn't miss much.

But the customer service response, which was a) wrong and b) slow, reminded me of something else. Who's representing you when a listener has a question? And how are they representing you? Do you have a solid, consistent plan to represent your station, your show, your podcast when people want to contact you?

One of the most common requests I get, from people within and outside the radio and podcasting industries, is "hey, do you have an email for (insert station, show, or podcast company name here)?" The reasons for needing to contact someone at those places vary, but I've noticed a lot of places fall short on transparency. For example, there are the websites that hide actual email addresses behind forms to fill out that don't name the recipient, just offering pull-down menus for what you're writing about that may not actually cover what you need. Some don't even offer that. There are social media accounts, mostly run by an intern or someone with other duties that seem to take priority, where responses are few and far between. There are Facebook pages where updates other than pure promo opportunities are sparse.

You wouldn't accept that from your cable company. You wouldn't accept that from any other company. Yet, try to get a quick and effective response to ANY request or question from a radio station or podcast company and see what happens. There are exceptions, but for the most part, media companies tend to forget that they, too, have customers, and they, too, have to be better with customer service.

On a show level, or a podcast level, that customer service has to come from the hosts and producers, and that is what we like to call "engagement." We tell radio hosts that engagement with listeners on social media is critical, and it is. Podcasters do it without provocation, because it's one way to build an audience. But radio stations and podcast networks aren't great at it, and I don't think they even think listeners ARE customers. Advertisers, maybe, but not listeners.

The bottom line is that radio stations and podcast companies, like any other business, should be easy to contact. It shouldn't be hard to make contact with a human at any business and to get a reasonable answer. At the very least, it shouldn't be a chore to figure out who's responsible for programming and find their email, and it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to get a tweet or Facebook response to a question. I know, it's a little thing. Little things count.

=============================

And you'll find a lot of little things to talk about on the radio and podcasts (okay, YOU try coming up with a clever segue into the plugs every week for, like, twenty years) at Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, and it's free; find it by clicking here and/or by following the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. You'll also want to check out "10 Questions With..." Tony Katz, who talks about his success at WIBC/Indianapolis and burgeoning syndication, how he's forging a path with talk that isn't a lot of partisan yelling, and his podcast about food, drink, and cigars, too.

Make sure you're subscribed to Today's Talk, the daily email newsletter with the top news stories in News, Talk, and Sports radio and podcasting. You can check off the appropriate boxes in your All Access account profile's Format Preferences and Email Preferences sections if you're not already getting it.

My podcast is "The Evening Bulletin with Perry Michael Simon," a quick (two minutes or less) daily thing, and you can get it at Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Google Play Music, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Stitcher, and RadioPublic. Spotify, too. Google Podcasts? Click here. You can also use the RSS feed and the website where you can listen in your browser, or my own website where they're all embedded, too. And if you have an Amazon Alexa-enabled device, just say "Alexa, play the Evening Bulletin podcast."

You can follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, and my Instagram account (same handle, @pmsimon) as well. And you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pmsimon, and at pmsimon.com.

=============================

It's a big holiday week for a lot of you, so I'm gonna go get the Passover brisket in the slow cooker and whichever holiday you celebrate (or none of the above), have a great one and I'll meet you in the candy aisle at CVS on Monday for the discounted Cadbury Mini-Eggs. You can have all the Peeps.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
www.facebook.com/pmsimon
Twitter @pmsimon
Instagram @pmsimon