Delays at Nielsen…
Media News’ Joe Mandese writes about…wait for it…problems at Nielsen…
NIELSEN FRIDAY SENT A NOTICE to clients acknowledging systemic problems in the delivery of its national ratings data since the beginning of the 2007-08 TV season. Nielsen attributed the delays to a combination of factors, including data volume, A/P meter processing, software issues and human error, and said it was taking the following steps to fix the problems:
* Data volume: “We are increasing capacity and evaluating core processes and applications to reduce cycle time and create some slack time in the overall process.”
Update: The NY Times’ Bill Carter writes about the Nielsen problems as well…
“To have a conference call on Friday and then have delays the next business day, that was not a great feeling,” said Catherine Herkovic, the senior vice president and managing director of national television client services for Nielsen. “I personally feel terrible about it.”
Nielsen now plans to upgrade its computer servers, which are at the company technology base in Oldsmar, Fla. But that may take some time. In its letter, the company said, “We expect to see a material reduction in the number of data delays beginning in mid-March with continuous improvement every 20 business days thereafter for the next four months.”
The clients do not have a great deal of sympathy for Nielsen’s problems mainly because they have a lot of money riding on the numbers that Nielsen provides. “There is so much revenue involved, over which we have no quality control,” said Alan Wurtzel, the president of research for NBC. “We don’t just use this data for analytical purposes. This is the currency of the business.”
The delays that Nielsen has experienced has nothing to do with “data volume, A/P meter processing, software issues and human error”. The delays have been going on for 19 weeks and if you count backwards 19 weeks from when the New York Times article by Bill Carter was written that would take you to the last week of September of 2007. The last week of September 2007 is when Nielsen gave pink slips to a large number of employees and at the same time announced its partnership with TCS. Nielsen lost a large amount of subject matter experts due to the layoffs. Mitchell Habib was too focused on appeasing his cronies in India rather than delivering on-time, accurate data.
Comment by Brutus — February 21, 2008 @ 8:59 am
I have four friends who work for Nielsen TV Ratings. Nielsen’s execs need to realize that the Membership Sales Reps are not given enough time to spend recruiting homes, due to an immense overload in administrative work.
Management is responsible for this work, not the Sales Reps. Nielsen pays their sales reps approx $30/hr to do inordinate amounts of administrative work, when recruiting homes into the sample should be the Sales Rep’s NUMBER ONE priority. This is yet another reason why Nielsen IS NOT producing quickly enough for clients.
My four Nielsen friends work 50 hours a week just trying to rush around finishing ridiculous administrative work, which Nielsen could easily pay one secretary to perform (such as ordering business cards, logging predicted weekly work schedules, and coordinating/piecing together their own brochure packets for recruiting households). Nielsen wastes money and time in this way. One secretary could order all of this stuff for their Sales Membership Representatives, and it would cost Nielsen a FRACTION of the money and time. Instead, the reps are running around doing 25 hrs of admin time, and only 19 hours of actual recruting of homes (Which INCLUDES DRIVE TIME - - and believe me, my friends drive VERY FAR each day, so actually they only are visiting/recruiting homes 8-10 hours/week).
Nielsen WAKE UP! Pay one or two people in Oldsmar,FL to do the administrative work for all Membership Sales Reps. All it takes is the push of a few buttons to create a universal order of supplies for all of the Sales Reps. These reps SHOULD be spending HOURS on the road, and there’s no need for them to do grunt work, only to interrupt and impede the gathering of household information. Not only that, but the Nielsen Sales Reps are really mixing up the information because there’s no time to accurately get it all done, while racing around doing what my friend’s call “forms management”. I watch my friends going to copy/print stores just to send a fax that the Receptionist in Oldsmar, FLorida could have EASILY sent. Waste of time! I see my friends mailing out letters and ordering letters online, and awaiting approval from management, and logging their future schedules, and printing out LOADS of wasted paper for reports, and purchasing supplies online, and piecing together hundreds of door hangers and brochures and such, - - - all of which should (in my humble opinion) be done by the receptionists in the main office in Florida. WASTE of VALUABLE recruiting hours.
My four Nielsen friends are exhausted, and can hardly focus on recruiting AT ALL. There’s few hours left to do ANYTHING, after the exhaustion of over 20 hrs of admin time each week! And they continually get email after email on their blackberry’s. I’ve never seen so many emails in my life. It’s overwhelming for them.
I feel greatly for Nieslen friends. I would never want their job as a Membership Sales Rep for Nielsen TV Ratings. Never! Not unless all of that “forms management” stuff was done FOR me, which is the NORM for sales reps at other companies. I mean, who ever heard of piecing together your own sales packets? Do you know how many hours I’ve spent HELPING my friends put together these packages and brochures and door hangers… not to mention writing down notes to each household on every door hanger. They cannot keep up with it. They end up contracting friends and family, just to help them put these sales packets together… and it literally takes HOURS each week to do this. Now, if someone from Oldsmar would SEND pre-made packets to the reps on a monthly basis, for example, each sales rep would be prepared ASAP to go out on the road and do what they do best - - - recruit homes! And even worse, the emails keep on piling up… emails with MORE instructions on MORE administrative orders, trivial online orders, dotting i’s and crossing t’s, and reminding this person via email of something, and emailing management with details of a particular form to fill out, and confirming appointments with homes for installation dates. What’s up with that? I thought SECRETARIES confirmed appointments - - NOT sales reps! At my job, receptionist do confirmation calls (just like at a doctor’s office). AGAIN, a total waste of good recruiting time AND a TREMENDOUS WASTE OF CLIENT MONEY TO PAY EACH OF THE NIELSEN REPS JUST TO SIT THERE AND CONFIRM INSTALLATIONS AND ORDER SUPPLIES AND SO ON. The Nielsen Sales Reps need to be out there, meeting people, recruiting, signing up homes for ACCURATE and TIMELY and COST EFFECTIVE television ratings.
Let the Sales Reps enjoy doing what they love MOST of all - - recruiting homes for clients!!!! This is how Nielsen would solve it’s problems. This is how they would make their clients happy. This is how the numbers would increase, and statistical research would be WAY more accurate! And Nielsen’s big client’s wouldn’t be WASTING their money (if Nielsen’s clients ONLY KNEW how much they’re wasting!!!!) on paying EACH and EVERY rep for Admin time.
My four friends continue to work like crazy, wishing and hoping for MORE time each day to go out on the road, but they still have to STOP each day for HOURS and do what management and receptionist should be doing FOR them. Nielsen clients… please help Nielsen to understand that you need efficiency and cost effectiveness…and accuracy! And please help Nielsen to understand that you won’t get any of these three things without the valuable work of the backbone of Nielsen, which are the Sales Membership Representatives!
And kudo’s to the person (Brutus) who wrote the comments above. It’s true. Nielsen focuses on hiring people, then firing them, then changing policy over and over and over and over again (confusing the reps, who have to learn the new policies which change almost EVERY DAY)… so much so, that Nielsen has lost focus on the primary goal - - - to get accurate results for research of television ratings.
Comment by randy — March 9, 2009 @ 2:21 am
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kevin
real estate
Comment by kevin — May 2, 2009 @ 9:24 pm
よろしくおねがいします。good good nice
Comment by 松戸 ネイルサロン — December 11, 2009 @ 11:11 pm