Maybe because things like having three priests arrested and then having the arrest denied by the Chines officials doesn’t bother you that much.

The whereabouts of three “underground” priests in northern China, detained by police months ago, are still unknown while another has apparently been persuaded to join the “open” Church, say sources.

Fathers Liu Jianzhong, Zhang Cunhui and Zhong Mingchang of Xuanhua diocese were taken away by plainclothes police on June 8, June 14 and Sept. 16 respectively.

Local Church sources said that when the priests’ family members went to government departments to enquire about them, the authorities denied detaining them and refused family requests to help locate them.

Meanwhile, Father Simon Zhang Jianlin, who was taken by police in July, is under house arrest in a county government building. Sources say he has been “brainwashed” and has been persuaded to join the Catholic Patriotic Association, but he is allowed to receive visitors in the premises.

Their bishop is 80 and is in hiding.

I can understand that when some products like the lousy CFL lightbulbs that the government in its wisdom is forcing everyone to use are only made in China you don’t have a choice about your purchasing. But when options are available why would China even be on the list?

Source: Union of Catholic Asian News

You may recall that we had some serious problems dealing with Idearc Media for Google Adwords campaigns a few months back.

We told them multiple times that we weren’t working with them anymore and they kept charging us for services they weren’t providing. I finally spoke to our new sales rep, George (Nick is gone) who promised that he was going to take care of the problem.

Last week we got another bill from Idearc so I called and left George a voice mail asking for an explanation. He hasn’t called back.

Today in the mail we received notice that Idearc is in bankruptcy court. I guess we weren’t the only dissatisfied customers.

Updated, please scroll to the bottom.

Bear with me, this post is going to get a little convoluted.

I am sure that you are familiar with the work of Monastery Icons. They make the western / eastern looking “icons” of saints. They have been popular because they give a Byzantine flavor to a lot of western saints that have never been written in a real icon.

Back in the 70’s an “Abbot Bishop” George Burke showed up in Oklahoma City and founded a Hindu community. That community became “Christian” and changed its name to “Holy Protection Old Catholic Benedictine Monastery of the Primitive Observance.” In the early 80’s the community “converted” to Orthodoxy and changed its name to Holy Protection Orthodox Monastery. A few years later they decided they were really Coptic Christians. Eventually they left Oklahoma, moved to Nebraska and then to California where they formed the Light of Christ Monastery at 1482 Rango Way, Borrego Springs, CA.  Light of Christ Monastery is the original organization behind Monastery Icons. (source)

On the Monastery Icons website you will find the following information:

Sacred Arts Foundation is a non-profit foundation created to strengthen faith and encourage Christian devotion in churches, schools, and individuals through a ministry of traditional Christian art. As the contemporary iconographer Photios Kontoglou expressed so well, “Icons raise the soul and mind to the realm of the spirit.” Our foundation is a cooperative effort of artisans and craftsmen throughout the United States and the world who strive to make our Monastery Icons products the highest quality available.

The Sacred Arts Foundation acquired Monastery Icons in 2004. This wouldn’t seem very odd except that the Sacred Arts Foundation had  the exact same California address as the Light of Christ Monastery, Monastery Icons and as you will see below, the Atma Jyoti Ashram.

If you look at the address on the Monastery Icons catalog you will find an Ohio address. This is the distribution center that handles fulfillment for their “icons.” Doing a search of the Ohio Secretary of State website shows that Monastery Icons is actually the Sacred Arts Foundation, a foreign (out-of-state) non-profit located at 1482 Rango Way, Borrego Springs, CA. The Sacred Arts Foundation was dissolved in Ohio in August of 2008 for failing to update their records.

The Sacred Arts Foundation filed its 2007 annual registration report in Missouri with a primary business address of 1482 Rango Way, Borrego Springs, CA. The contact email at the bottom of the form is someone at Monastery Icons. The Sacred Arts Foundation was dissolved by the State of Missouri in December of 2008 for failing to file a current registration.

The California address at that time in 2007 was also the home to the Atma Jyoti Ashram, “a spiritual institution devoted to the practice and teaching of Sanatana Dharma, the Eternal Religion, as found in the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and the Sankhya Karika.”

The same California address is also listed as the mailing address for Monastery Icons back in 1999.

Sometime between August and September of 2007 the Ashram moved to  PO Box 1370 Cedar Crest, NM.  If you look at the Q&A on the new Ashram site, the Swami bears a striking resemblance to Abbot George, the founder of the Hindu community and the Light of Christ Monastery back at the beginning of this post.

Remember the dissolved Sacred Arts Foundation from Missouri and Ohio? It pops up again in New Mexico, registered with the Secretary of State as a Missouri Non-Profit doing business in New Mexico at – wait for it – PO Box 1370 Cedar Crest, NM.

You can also see that the Sacred Arts Foundation is listed as a Corporation in California at the 1482 Rango Way, Borrego Springs address with a headquarters in Missouri. This record is current as of 9/2009. The question should be asked, how is it that a corporation can be listed both in California and New Mexico with a headquarters in Missouri when the corporation in Missouri was dissolved in 2008 for failure to file updated records?

A quick perusal of the Sacred Arts Foundation website (the website is registered in the town of Tijeras, two miles from Cedar Crest) reveals:

• Workshops in “Transformational Movement”, Feng Shui, Yoga and Art of Aware Communication
• Tutorials on Astrology, Tarot and Feng Shui

It is clear both from the origins of Monastery Icons, its tangled web of corporate arrangements and its ongoing ownership by a completely anti-Christian new-age group that no Christian organization should be giving any financial support to this company by buying its art.

Much of the material for this post was mined from the Byzantine Forum.

Updated 9/23:

We have had a visitor say that he called the Sacred Arts Foundation website owners and that they denied any connection with Monastery Icons. The strange thing is that the website doesn’t provide any phone contact information, Monastery Icons won’t provide contact information and both Sacred Arts Foundations, if separate entities, are located within two miles of each other in New Mexico.

While trying to prove concretely that sacredartsfoundation.com is the website of the Sacred Arts Foundation that owns Monastery Icons, we ran across another interesting connection that directly ties the Sacred Arts Foundation in New Mexico (but not the website) to Monastery Icons.

When you do a Google maps search for Monastery Icons you get an address of 88 Snowline Rd, Cedar Crest, NM. This address is the same address as used by the Registered Agent, John Weber to register the Sacred Arts Foundation in New Mexico. Google maps also provides the phone number (505) 281-2555‎ which when called, goes to a Monastery Icon answering machine.

At Aquinas and More we are committed to educating our customers not only about the treasures that are offered by our suppliers but also about items that we don’t carry and the reasons why.

This summer was a doozy for strange weather up in our part of Colorado. First, we didn’t really have summer since it rained almost every day from May through August. Second, we had a hail storm that lasted fifteen minutes and dumped quarter-sized hail on everything. Third, we had the “We’ll never have a tornado near our house because of the elevation / terrain / weather patterns” tornado a few miles from our home.

The hail storm destroyed our roof, all the windows on one side of the house and the tops of both of our vans.

USAA appraised the damage to our van and was very generous with the payment (they gave us enough to have the roof cut off the vehicle and replaced). The agent also noticed that the driver-side door had wind damage so he filed a separate claim for the bent panel. Think about that. I had noticed the crease in the door but had assumed we did something. I didn’t mention it to the agent. He saw the crease and started looking at the door seams and hinges and offered to file the claim. That meant a) more work for him b) more money given out by the insurer. It also meant a much happier customer.

The van we had coverage for was repaired by MAACO and they did a great job not only with the roof but with the door and another dent in the vehicle at a far lower price than what our insurance company had given us.

Our roofers, Timberline Roofing, were great. They are a family run business (two brothers) who were polite, professional and our new green roof goes very well with our yellow house. My dad has used Timberline Roofing twice in the past and we went with them on that recommendation alone. Never underestimate the value of customer testimonies.

The window company, Champion Windows, did a professional job from the initial “Here’s how great our windows are”  to the installation.

The other rep we got an estimate from, Anderson Windows, never gave me the impression that he really wanted our business. He didn’t even come into the house to look at the windows. He also told me that Champion didn’t have a lifetime warranty, which they do on everything including the screens.

Our insurance company, Allstate, sent us an initial check for the damages but when I sent them estimates and explained what their first agent had missed, they apologized, said the first agent didn’t do a good job and sent out another rep to reassess the damage. They also sent us another check. Great service all around.

For the trim on our garage we got estimates from Handyman Connection which was 4x the estimate from Two Men and a Brush. From past dealings with Handyman Connection, they are ALWAYS far more expensive than anyone else.

The initial meeting with the Two Men and a Brush rep went fine so they sent out their paint crew.

We had agreed that they would scrape the old paint, hammer in loose trim, prime and paint the trim, vents and the undersides of the roof overhang. My wife called me after they said they were finished to tell me that they hadn’t painted the sides of the trim, only the fronts. Since the trim had taken a beating from the storm and hadn’t been painted in at least four years, it didn’t even have paint in places on the sides. The painters told us that we hadn’t requested “box trim” and not to sign the project off if we weren’t happy. Have any of you heard of “box trim” or do you just assume that when someone says they will paint your trim they will paint all of it and not just the face?

When I saw the finished product I was less than pleased. It was clear that they had only scraped paint over the garage door and not touched the rest of the trim with a scraper. There were several loose trim tacks  that they had painted over instead of hammering in. They also hadn’t painted the underside of the roof overhang. I was able to peel off strips of paint where they had painted over the loose paint.

I called their office and the secretary offered all kinds of excuses and told me that the painters had told her we had signed off on the work. We scheduled the boss to come back out to look at the work the following week.

When he got back out to our house he claimed to have explained the difference between standard trim painting and box trim painting and that I had chosen to go with the standard because of cost considerations. There isn’t any reason there would have been cost considerations because the insurance company was covering the repairs. Further, the trim around the window was completely paint-free so I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to leave it that way.

When I explained that it was obvious that his crew hadn’t scraped the old paint, he said that it must have blown away. To illustrate the absurdity of this claim, let me describe the area around our garage. We mow the grass along one side of the garage so it is short there. The driveway is gravel and the other two sides we leave “natural” i.e. three-foot tall prairie grass. Somehow there were paint shavings on the driveway but not a single bit of old paint anywhere else around the garage. Somehow, a magical wind storm had swept away all the paint from the three foot high grass but left it on the driveway. Hmm.

Apart from the obvious lying between him and his paint crew, he had the audacity to hope that I would buy his “I’ve been painting for twenty years and I know a good paint job when I see it” line. He also never got around to explaining why his paint crew said we had signed off on their work when it was clear on the papers that we hadn’t.

A few tips to business owners who like to be in business:

1. Don’t assume that your customer wants the cheaper option without asking.
2. Don’t pull the “I’m the expert so I know what ‘good’ is” line when someone who never has touched a paint brush can see that you are lying.
3. When your paint crew lies about what they did, don’t double down with an even bigger lie to cover for them.
4. Don’t assume that your lousy customer service and work won’t be aired out to the general public.

For a long time Ascension Press has been running sales on their products directly to the public and doing aggressive direct marketing to parishes for their Great Adventure Bible Study.

Recently, Ignatius Press started doing similar things – offering parishes products on commission, offering movie night packages for parishes and now, steep discounts on a lot of products on their website.

I have heard several store owners grumble that the publishers are helping to destroy their business and I agree. I have said the same thing. On the other hand, I have also said that the publishers are probably being forced to do it because a large percentage (probably a majority) of Catholic store owners have no idea how to promote products to local parishes or even their own customers. Because the stores aren’t staying up on what’s new from publishers and aren’t making the initiative to go out and promote these products, publishers are left with two undesirable options:

1. Keep publishing new items and hope that stores will suddenly start doing what they have never done before, namely, promote new products to the local market.
2. Go direct to the public with products to survive.

If I were a publisher I would have leaned towards number one but first I would have sent an ultimatum to all of my accounts giving them a time frame to get their act together, or else.

Unfortunately, the publishers chose option one without talking to stores first leaving everyone in a bad position. Frankly, I doubt that giving an ultimatum would have resulted in more than whining from most stores. A few stores would probably have done something but not enough to convince the publishers to abandon the threat.

The Catholic Marketing Network has been battling this business apathy for years and doesn’t seem to be making any headway. They keep offering classes at the trade shows that are basically 101 level classes and they never can move beyond that because most stores won’t even take the advice offered there and put it into practice.

So, what to do? I’m afraid that a generation of store owners will have to pass away before this situation can really be dealt with. In the meantime, publishers will continue to become hostile competitors competing for an already small base of customers. Unfortunately the store will probably be the loser leaving local shoppers without a local option for buying Catholic products.

Barney Paradise of Design Identity provided Aquinas and More with the design for our store when we first opened.  We sat down with him at the 2009 International Christian Retail Show in Denver where he discussed the changes that Christian stores are making in today’s market.  Thinking about putting a coffee shop in your store?  Maybe now is a good time.

A few weeks ago we explored some options for having our keyword advertising managed by an outside group and settled on Idearc Media, owned by Verizon. They seemed to have a reasonable grasp of things and except for some doubtful answers about Catholicism by our account rep, seemed like they would do a good job.

Boy was I wrong.

Keyword Problems

I provided them with a full history of keyword data that included conversion rates for each keyword along with a backup of our adwords account and a file with all of our product data.

When they sent me their initial list of keywords for the campaign I was immediately concerned because many of the keywords have produced traffic but have never produced sales. Going through the list it was obvious that the rep hadn’t bothered to read the conversion data and had just dumped the higher traffic keywords into the ad system. The rep had also added several keywords to our account for things we didn’t sell.

As I was trying to figure out what was going on with our account, I noticed that a Google ad that popped up when I searched for “First Communion Cards” was taking me to the holy card homepage on our site. This didn’t seem like an optimal landing page since the only First Communion holy cards on the page were at the very bottom and only there because they were new items. There isn’t any mention of First Communion in the main body of the page. When I asked about the rationale for this and asked if people might actually be searching for congratulations cards instead of holy cards, this is the response I received from our rep:

I put that as the home page because that was the most relevant to that search and it allows them to research what cards they were looking for. I dont [sic] want to assume most of the searchers are looking for First Communion.

So…if someone actually does a search for “First Communion card” he didn’t want to assume they REALLY meant First Communion. My mind wobbles.

After several emails back and forth trying to get some rational explanation for the keyword selection I spoke to the rep this morning. His explanation for paying for ads on keywords that had never produced sales from standard, non-paid searches?

“Just because people didn’t buy before doesn’t mean that they won’t buy in the future.”

I think there is a definition for insanity along those lines.

Another thing that we were told is that you are only allowed to have one landing page per ad. This means that if you have an ad for a variety of church goods and you used to have a separate landing page for each different keyword people might use, you now have to create a separate ad for each keyword instead of a general ad that covers a variety of keywords. The only problem with this is that it isn’t true. The only thing I can think is that they tell clients this so they don’t actually have to do the work of finding good landing pages for a bunch of keywords – see the Landing Page Problems below.

Adwords Problems

The rep sent me a note saying that he couldn’t open the Adwords backup file I sent and asked for a spreadsheet. I explained that the backup was from the Adwords desktop tool and he should download it so he could get the full list of ads, keywords and landing pages. He told me he couldn’t download the application so I had to send a spreadsheet instead that left out a lot of the useful information.

Pay-Per-Click Problems

Okay, so these guys are supposed to be pros and able to reduce our costs while increasing sales, right? During our first week the cost per click was ten times what we normally pay. No big deal, they were just getting the account in place and things would improve quickly. This week the cost per click was twelve-and-a-half times what it usually is!

They explained that this was a new account without a history and costs for Google ads have gone up 400% over the last few years. If the keyword problems mentioned above and the landing page problems below hadn’t occurred I might believe them. As it is, I think they are blowing smoke.

Reporting Problems

Apart from the lousy job Idearc did managing our campaign, the reporting tools they provide are just as bad.

Do you want to see what keywords are associated with what ad? Sorry.

How about the actual text of the ads? Nope.

How about the correlation between clicks, ads, keywords and sales? Nope, no way and are you nuts?

Okay, what about the actual text of the ads that are running? That’s crazy talk.

Oh, the reports show that there are form conversions. Great. I can see what forms people are filling out on my site! Silly Ian, that would make sense. Of course you can’t.

The report shows a ton of sales coming from Superpages and none from Google but we aren’t running ads on Superpages and are on Google. Oh, that’s a bug. “Sales” in the report mean anytime someone puts something in the shopping cart.

Landing Page Problems

According to Google:

The landing page is what your site visitor sees first after clicking your ad. Therefore, it’s imperative that your landing page works in conjunction with your ad text. If your ad describes a specific product, the landing page should display that product. If your ad describes a general category, that category should appear on the page. In short, your landing page should deliver on your ad’s promise.

When optimizing your website and landing page, strive to: (1) Make the content useful, relevant, and trustworthy and (2) Make the site easy to navigate.

Here’s how our conversation about landing pages went:

Me: “So how many ads are actually running on our account?”
Him: “Sixteen.”
Me: “You’re only running sixteen ads for all of our keywords?”
Him: “Yes.”
Me: “So how many landing pages are you using?”
Him: “Eight.”
Me: “You’re only using eight pages on our site for our entire campaign? What, are you just using our main categories?”
Him: “Pretty much.”
Me: “So let me get this straight. If someone types in “Magnificat” in Google and clicks on our ad they go to the home page for books?”
Him: “Yes.”
Me: “We’re through. You’re not running our account anymore.”

So basically, Idearc mismanaged just about everything they possibly could with our account. Maybe you will have better luck but I’m sure that there are less risky companies to work with.

(Reprinted with permission from CBA Retailers + Resources 05/09)

By Lauren Zaczek

With a last name like Zaczek and a childhood address listed in Chicago, it should go without saying that I come from an extremely Polish Catholic family. My relatives have occupied pews in the Windy City’s Catholic churches most Sunday mornings for generations now.

Although I no longer attend a Catholic church regularly, there still are traditions, declarations, scenes, even scents that draw me right back into the heart of Catholicism. These days when I enter a Catholic church, it’s those occasions I wish to rediscover, even if only in small part.  rough unique product selections and accessibility, Catholic stores today also have the ability to meet my needs whether I intend to purchase a gift for myself
or someone else.

THE CATHOLIC STORE CUSTOMER

Recent research indicates that 64% of Catholic store customers are female, according to Al Napleton, president of the Catholic Marketing
Network. He also shared with me recently that while 28% of core Catholic store customers are between the ages of 18 and 35, an additional 72% of core shoppers are 35+. Other demographics Catholic stores serve on a regular basis include clergy and lay church staff.

Benedictus Bookstore manager Patrick O’Mahoney’s customers re ect this trend at his Lexington, KY, store. “Mainly our customers are  middle-aged women who are looking for gift items, especially sacramental and inspirational gi s,” O’Mahoney shared with me over the phone.

Ian Rutherford of Aquinas & More Catholic Bookstore in Colorado Springs, CO, tends to serve customers who are slightly younger. Rutherford’s core customers are between the ages of 25 and 40 years old who enter his store for one of four reasons:  they’re inquiring about the Catholic faith; they’re in need of an Easter season gift; they’re enthusiastic about their faith and want to know more; or they’re clergy looking for church supplies. “We have Catholic priests who come in, but we also have Lutheran clergy looking for more liturgical products,” Rutherford said. “The other Christian stores in town carry more Evangelical products and don’t necessarily have the depth of liturgical products that both Catholic and Lutheran customers need.”

Closer to the Pacifc, Catholic-store owner Dennis Maurice sees more extended families walk through his store, Glad Tidings, in Pleasanton, CA. “During the day, it’s the Walmart family structure, the family that herds together,” Maurice explained. “We also have about 10-20% of our customers who are non-Catholics. We can’t assume all our customers ‘speak’ Catholic.”

READING & BUYING HABITS

CBA Consumer Intelligence helps store owners and managers understand the buying habits of those customers who do speak Catholic, though. In 2008, 52.49% of consumers surveyed who identified themselves as Catholic also said they read books. Of that 52.49%, a full 80.81% said they read those books frequently or occasionally. Comparatively, of all respondents who identified with any Christian denomination, 82.19% read
books frequently or occasionally. Of all consumers surveyed regardless of religious affiliation, 82.74% said they read books frequently or occasionally as well.

Since Pope Benedict XVI’s election, Rutherford has noticed a change in they type of books Catholics are reading and purchasing. Pope Benedict’s writings during his papacy are also influenced by his works prior to his election. Unlike Pope John Paul II’s more celebrity-like books produced by secular publishers, the majority of Pope Benedict’s writing was done as a theology professor and is slightly more challenging to read, according to Rutherford. Regardless, customers are still buying it in his store.

In addition to book-reading habits, CBA Consumer Intelligence indicates 25.93% of self-identified Catholic consumers read their Bibles on a daily basis. Another 27.78% of Catholic consumers dive into their Bibles on a weekly basis.

As for Catholics’ book-purchasing habits in 2008, 35.35% of those who read frequently also frequently purchase new books in a store versus the 21.44% who frequently purchase their books online. Overall, consumer book-purchasing habits reflect these trends, as 34.57% of those who frequently read also frequently purchase new books in a store. And 21.60% frequently purchase their books online.

Rutherford’s store caters successfully to both types of consumer purchasing habits. As the largest online Catholic store, 85% of the store’s total sales originate online. While Aquinas & More is undeniably wellstocked, Rutherford admits, “ The back offices are really where everything happens.”

Aquinas & More also holds the title of the only Catholic store with a blog (owner comment: I told the reporter that I’m not aware of another Catholic store with a blog, not that we are the only store with one). On a regular basis, several staff members contribute to Aquinas & More’s blog (www.catholicinformation.aquinasandmore.com), allowing for multiple and far-reaching online interactions with customers.

Napleton sees equal opportunity for Catholic retailers to partner with technology rather than oppose it. “Generally, the stores haven’t really participated in the growth of the Internet, and view it as something that takes away from their business,” he said. “ e Internet is having a big impact on retail in general, of course, and Catholic stores are no exception.”

Online stores continue to gain popularity, too, as Napleton receives an equal number of people interested in opening brick-andmortar stores or online stores. “I’ve been in this business for more than 20 years, and when I started there were a couple thousand Catholic stores.  the numbers have stayed relatively the same as stores have closed, but others have opened either physically or online. Today, the make-up of those wanting
to open a store is typically a younger person who understands new technologies.  they’re individuals looking to go straight to the consumer
through Internet marketing.”

STAYING RELEVANT

For Maurice, staying relevant is a carefully calculated mixture of returning to the basics of retailing, integrating new products, and creating open communication channels within his parish’s leadership. “Everyone has to challenge themselves in category management these days,” he said. “Figure out what your best-selling items are, and then make sure you don’t run out of them— in every category. We all know black Bibles sell better than burgundy ones.

“Customers are going back to the basic bread-and-butter items,” Maurice continued. “People are staying home more and eating at home more, so they’re entertaining at home more. And they’re not used to it. So they’ve starting to pray more.  they’re buying more DVDs. We can’t keep up with
DVDs in this store. DVDs are what CDs used to be in the Christian market in the Catholic market.”

A simple way to learn what a store’s basics are is for the owner or manager to shop the store as if he were a customer, suggests Maurice. “Pretend you’re coming into the store looking for something specific—a birthday gift or an anniversary gift or anything—and see what you find.  This will tell you a lot about your store, and if you have what you need in stock.”

Maurice also believes more clergy recommendations would have a significant impact on sales in Catholic stores. “If our priests would recommend more products, in any which way they feel comfortable doing, our stores would have a 20-30% increase. Every time a priest says something at a conference, we can’t keep up.”

For O’Mahoney, staying relevant includes connecting with his parish’s already thriving youth groups. Maintaining strong relationships with all of the parishes’ youth leaders in his community has created an opportunity for the store to carry merchandise that speaks directly to younger generations. O’Mahoney has also focused on hosting events outside the store, such as connecting with local Catholic schools. “The schools
allow us to come in and do book sales, and in return we allow those book sales to be a fundraiser for that school,” O’Mahoney explained.
“They spread the word about our store, especially the customer service they receive while here.”

Napleton believes stores can remain relevant through their inventory mix, as well. Throughout his tenure in the industry, he’s seen the quality and variety of products greatly improve. “The introduction of new products hasn’t slowed down, rather it’s expanded in all categories: books, Bibles, gifts, art, apparel. There’s a challenge in bringing the products to the market, but in each one of those areas, there’s more innovation and
variety and suppliers out there. Each year the products get better,” he said.

As I left Aquinas & More yesterday, Napleton’s words rang true.  The product quality and selection has indeed improved since the year I donned my infant baptism dress. And when Father’s Day draws closer next month, I’ve already planned the shopping list for my return trip to the store.

From The Deacon’s Bench:

The St. Anthony Messenger Press, the Cincinnati-based national provider of inspirational and educational Roman Catholic spirituality resources, announced Monday it is redefining its strategy and reducing staffing.

Father Dan Kroger said the 116-year-old communications company, based in Over-the-Rhine and sponsored by the Franciscan Friars of St. John the Baptist Province, is offering voluntary early retirement to eligible employees, closed its Cincinnati Call Center and will stop using its independent field sales force.

St. Anthony Messenger has long been on our list of publishers to buy very little from because they tend to publish heterodox authors. I have also been pretty leary of their Catholic Update that I frequently see in parish literature racks. I recently found an older edition from several years back that suggested contraception use is a matter of conscience for a couple.

A couple of years ago St. Anthony Messenger purchased Servant Publications, a thoroughly orthodox publisher that we had been working with for a while. I assumed that they did it to put up an orthoodox front for the company. After a single attempt to produce a single mixed catalog for both companies that met with a lot of protest, they went back to separating the two into different catalogs or into completely separate sections of the trade catalog.

I found the end of the article particular telling and it doesn’t bode well for the publisher:

He [Father Dan Kroger] also said the traditional Catholic audience is shrinking and the subscriber base is declining.

It may be that HIS traditional audience is shrinking – the audience that likes dissidents – but the audience that actually appreciates true Catholicism isn’t shrinking. The fact that he can’t see that makes me doubt the company’s ability to adapt to the changing attitudes among Catholics.

Every year we take all of our shredding from the office to a secure document shredder. For the past few years we have taken our stuff to Docu Vault. This year when I made our delivery I found that Docu Vault had been bought by Iron Mountain.

When I walked in the front door the receptionist wasn’t there. I rang the bell and waited at least a minute for someone to show up at the front desk.

I explained that I had boxes to drop off for shredding I was told that “they don’t do drop off shredding.” Okay, fine. New company. New policies.

So I asked what I needed to do. Instead of offering to help, she asked if my account had transferred over from Docu Vault to Iron Mountain. Since I wasn’t even aware that the company had been bought out, I couldn’t answer her question. Instead of offering to look in her system she gave me a card for a sales rep and told me to call him.

I called last Wednesday and had to leave a message. It is now three business days later and he hasn’t bothered to call back.

It seems to me that this company is confident in its market dominance and couldn’t care less about customer service. Maybe they treat big customers better but we certainly won’t be going back.

So what’s the take away from this?

• If you  buy out a business make plans to deal with previous customers in a way that causes the customer the least inconvenience.
• Don’t EVER tell a returning customer to call a sales rep as if he has never worked with you before.
• If you are a sales rep, at least pretend to care and call back immediately.