Case Study

Puzzler Media

Background

Puzzler Media publishes more than 60 magazines - and with more than 50 per cent of the total market - has the leading titles in almost every sector. These are magazines built to suit every reader and cater for every type of puzzle.

As the UK's first puzzle magazine, The Puzzler is probably the best-known of these titles. Still a household name, it is the UK's biggest-selling puzzle magazine.

Puzzler Media also supplies puzzles for newspapers and magazines, and its compilers are often asked to provide custom-made puzzles for other companies.

The Problem

Many of Puzzler's titles place great emphasis on competitions which generate thousands of entries every month. However, the five most popular magazines alone - Chat Puzzles with Prizes, Chat Crosswords, Chat Puzzles Select, Puzzler Collection and Puzzler Crosswords - result in the company being inundated with up to 50,000 entries on a four-weekly basis.

Handling this quantity of post, and then having to sort and batch entries led to Puzzler outsourcing the work. But having used a local company near its base in Redhill, Surrey, Puzzler felt a faster service was necessary to provide greater flexibility in notifying people they had won competitions and in arranging dispatch of the relevant prizes. According to the rules of each competition, winners will be contacted within 28 days of the closing date, but Puzzler was often receiving entries up to two weeks late.

The Solution

In August 2003 Puzzler contacted Remploy Offiscope and by October the decision to use its outsourced response handling service had been taken.

Using a team at its Cleator Moor site in Cumbria, Offiscope set up a suite of five PO box numbers to handle every response from Puzzler's five biggest titles - each magazine has one entry form, sometimes covering as many as 12 competitions. On arrival at Offiscope, staff count and batch each form by competition name and date, and on a weekly basis a digital report is sent to Puzzler, detailing responses to each competition.

Remploy Offiscope then stores the batched responses returning them in bulk to Puzzler the day after each publication's competition closing date.

The Outcome

The decision to outsource this response handling process to Remploy Offiscope has allowed Puzzler to focus more effectively on its core activity of maintaining its dominant position in the UK's publishing sector. The speed of service Offiscope provides also gives Puzzler more time to choose winners, contact each one and deliver the relevant prizes.

Puzzler marketing promotion executive Shameem Begg said: "At Puzzler Media we expect a high level of service from our suppliers. We chose Remploy Offiscope because they were able to provide us with the fast, accurate and reliable service we require and they also have the ability to be flexible to our needs."