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Growing pain Papers late or lost as new delivery system kicks in Staff Writer The Brainerd Dispatch has been either late or it has not come at all to certain subscribers in the Brainerd lakes area.
The Dispatch's circulation department has fielded hundreds of phone calls from customers inquiring about their late or lost newspapers.
The daily newspaper that prints six days a week changed the way it delivers its newspapers Thursday so it would become more efficient. This change has been "a real growing pain and we are doing everything in our power to correct the problem," said Dispatch Publisher Terry McCollough.
McCollough said the Dispatch not only delivers the Dispatch to its customers, but it also delivers the Bunyanland Shopper, Lake Country Echo, Pine River Journal, Piper Shopper, Echoland Shopper, St. Paul Pioneer Press and USA Today through much of the lakes area.
The Dispatch had 110 drivers, which included Dispatch and contract employees, who each delivered one or several of the publications on their route. On Thursday, the number of drivers was cut to 70 and they deliver all eight newspapers on their route.
The Dispatch also added about 400 people to the Dispatch delivery list who used to be mail subscribers. McCollough said mail subscribers in the lakes area had, for many years, been requesting same day, earlier delivery of the Dispatch.
"Putting together this new, combined delivery system has finally given us the chance to accommodate these requests," said McCollough.
McCollough said the Dispatch has been working for months on creating a more efficient and cost-effective delivery route system to save money so it would not have to increase the price of the newspaper. He said with gasoline prices reaching close to $3 a gallon and having two or three drivers making basically the same route, but at different times of the day, was "hopelessly inefficient," said McCollough.
McCollough said hundreds of hours were put into developing this delivery route system. Employees processed more than 30,000 addresses in a 4,500-square-mile area involving eight publications.
"The size and scope of this project is extremely difficult and in the process we have upset many customers with the late deliveries and the missing newspapers," said McCollough. "We are working diligently to correct this ... and we absolutely apologize for this.
"This problem won't go away overnight as we locate each address. We're working with our drivers and we expect that the number of problems will decrease steadily over the next few days."
McCollough said a bulk of the delivery problems were north of Brainerd but there were problems scattered in several areas.
JENNIFER STOCKINGER can be reached at jennifer.stockinger@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5851.
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