Image by somenametoforget via Flickr
Being a cloud evangelist and an eco-conscious person, I embraced the idea of ebooks early on. After playing around with Sony ebook reader for some time, I jumped over to buy Nook as it had wireless and 3G capabilities. Well, this post is not about Nook per se but my experience with Barnes And Noble eMagazine subscription for Nook. In short, it is a frustrating experience.
For Nook owners, Barnes and Noble offers eMagazines and eNewspapers for subscription on their site. According to their website, readers will get 14 days free trial and their subscription will be charged at the end of 14 days. Their collection of eMagazines and eNewspapers are nowhere close to what Amazon.com has for Kindle but, nevertheless, I was bought into it because I have plans to go completely paper-free before the end of 2010.
Once my Nook arrived, I logged into Barnes and Noble website and subscribed to couple of emagazines. In spite of their ad touting 14 days free trial, my credit card was charged. But I was ok with it because if I like the experience, I was anyhow going to pay for it. Later, I decided against one of the emagazines I subscribed and cancelled it on their site. After I clicked through the link, it gave me a notification saying that the subscription will be cancelled in a hour. It never happened. I went ahead and tried to cancel another magazine I had subscribed. The same thing happened. I gave them couple of days time and tried again. The same thing happened again. Frustrated, I contacted Barnes and Noble customer service through email and they replied back saying that the eMagazine subscriptions are handled through Zinio and asked me to get in touch with them (email content reproduced below. The names and order numbers x-ed out for privacy sake).
We have received your inquiry regarding your order #’s 12xxxxxxx and 12xxxxxxx.
We are sorry you are having trouble with your magazine subscriptions. Your orders were fulfilled by Zinio, our third party partner for digital magazine subscriptions. The Zinio Team can provide you with answers to all of your questions about your subscriptions.
Please contact Zinio?s Customer Service Center at 1-888-946-4666 or via email at: BNsupport@zinio.com 10AM to 9PM EST Monday through Friday. Email assistance will also be available between 12PM to 8PM on Sundays
EST.Visit www.bn.com and click on the options that appear in the upper right-hand corner to view information about your order.
We look forward to your next visit.
Sincerely,
Mixxxxxx
Customer Service Representative
Barnes and Noble
http://www.bn.com/
I was terribly frustrated because when I signed up, Barnes and Noble never told me that my emagazine subscriptions are processed through Zinio. Still, I contacted Zinio support through email and I got the following response.
Hello,
Thank you for contacting Zinio Customer Support.
I apologize but Zinio does not handle eMagazine subscriptions for Barnes & Noble. We do Digital Subscriptions for them which can be viewed on a computer. The eMagazines are a different type of magazine that is for the nook or their eReader software. I’m sorry you were sent to us but unfortunately I will need to direct you to them for resolution. Since we don’t offer eMagazines, I can’t even see the order to help you cancel it.
You can contact Barnes & Noble at 800-843-2665. I also copied them in on this email to assist them in handling this case and cases like it in the future.
If I can be of further assistance, please let me know.
Kind regards,
Mxxxx Cxxxxxxxxxx
Zinio Customer Support
1-888-946-4666
When I complained about my experience on Twitter, they took note of that and responded immediately saying Barnes and Noble has given me wrong information.
@krishnan Nook mags are ‘eMagazines’, we sell ‘digital subscriptions’ on B&N, agents can confuse the two. Sorry you were given wrong info
I really appreciate Zinio taking time to explain what is going on and this brings into focus some of the questions related to how business is conducted by Barnes and Noble in this cloud based, social media driven world.
- Did Barnes and Noble learn anything about web based business, in general, and ebooks, in particular?
- How are they going to compete with the poster boy of the web and leader of the Cloud, Amazon.com, on ebook readers, ebooks, emagazines, enewspapers, etc?
- While Barnes and Noble took a long time to respond to my email, Zinio responded immediately during the weekend. When I complained about this issue on Twitter, Zinio was monitoring their brand and responded to me explaining the situation. I am wondering if Barnes and Noble even gets social media in this cluetrain based world of business.
- Irrespective of whether it is a cloud business or a web business or, even, a traditional brick and motor business, training the customer service representative properly is imperative. Especially, when a company is venturing into a new kind of business, they have to go an extra distance to educate the customer service representatives properly about their offerings. Already consumers are confused about new technologies due to confusing levels of information from the media and if the customer service is going to mislead them further, it doesn’t augur well for their business.
I am glad more and more companies are jumping in to offer services tapping the advantages of cloud (I am using the term cloud a bit loosely here) but it is also important that they do it right and not confuse the consumers.
So did you manage to un-subscribe or are you still paying for magazines you don’t want? I’m REALLY interested in these kind of appliances. A computer is such wild overkill for my parent’s generation. The stuff they used to get from newspapers and magazines is all online now, but they’re not used to sitting at a desk and going online – they want to sit on the couch or with a coffee and read their articles. Something like a connected eBook reader is the ideal device. But with horror stories like this it looks like they’re getting a computer and I’m doing tech support!!!
After I posted this one, they sent a mail saying they have canceled my subscriptions but it is still showing up in my account. I emailed them back about it and I haven’t got a response yet.
Another example of customer service passing the buck.
In real customer service, the B&N rep would have handled the situation regardless of the final vendor. Your contract is with B&N, not their vendor. The CSA should have taken your information and done whatever is necessary to fix the situation behind the scenes. At the very least, hey should have contacted Zinio on the three way call and discussed the situation with the Zinio rep. Then, the B&N rep would have learned the situation and not made the mistake in the future.
I think customers should demand that kind of service and if the CSA will not provide it, we should take it up the chain until someone will take care of us properly.