The Economist

If you want to learn or know about economic, refer this magazines. It is an international magazine, gives detail about world economic news. It is an upto date magazine too.

It seems incongruous giving The Economist 1 star as it's an excellent magazine. I have no problem with the researchers, contributors etc. This review relates to my experience of trying to set up a subscription.

The subscription was a Christmas present for my father who has been reading The Economist for many years. I placed an order online with a credit card and received an email confirmation that the 1 year subscription was in place. So I sat back and relaxed.

The fun started when the magazines didn't show up.

To cut a long story short, the customer services team eventually told me that my subscription had been cancelled via a request to their telephone team. So I asked them to check their call logs and tell me who called and why they cancelled. The response was that they couldn't tell me any details of the call - only that it was made and my order was cancelled. Now, either The Economist told me a bare-face lie, which I offer as a possibility - nothing more, or they have a serious problem with their ordering system. Presumably if an order is cancelled, one which was made with a credit card, then the only person with the authority to do so is the person who placed the order - in this case me. But I didn't. So the only other conclusion I can draw is that anyone can call them up and cancel whatever they like. After all, nothing is logged.

I can cope with companies tripping up. It happens from time to time and it's no big deal - as long as it's put right. The really bizarre thing with The Economist was that it was quite clear a mistake had been made - I don't really care by whom - and that there was a customer who wanted his Economist delivered. But at no point was there any offer of help, any suggestion such as, "We're sorry about this. Call this number now and let us put things right."

It took, on average, 3 days for the customer services team to respond to each of my mails and so the whole affair was long and drawn out. It culminated with me saying that I was very confused and asking what they were going to do about it. Their final word? "Here's a link to our website where you can place an order."

Terrific.

However, at the bottom of each customer services e/mail were the heart warming words: "Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused in this matter."

It's the sincerity that brought a lump to my throat.

I dislike whinging and most of my reviews are about great companies who have impressed me. Sorry Economist, but you were dreadful on this occasion. So my advice is buy the magazine if it's on your newsagent's shelf; you won't regret it. But if you're tempted by a subscription...

The magazine content is great. However I’ve had problems with the customer service support since the start. I signed up under an offer where a free gift (a handbag) was to be sent to me within 6-8

weeks. When no handbag turned up I emailed the Singapore support team (its an Asian subscription) on August 30th but did not receive a response till I sent a follow up email. On September 4th they wrote they were ordering a replacement but have not responded since to my requests to elaborate on what happened to the original bag.

I have now asked them to suspend the subscription till I receive the ’free gift’ however still no response. Shockingly poor and slow service. In their automated email confirmations they claim to respond in two business days. An absolute eternity in this age - and they still fail comprehensively.

So by all means subscribe but if something goes wrong you’re not going to get much help.

Amazing. An extremely well-written, sane magazine that almost exceeds its value for money. It is a bit hard to digest though so not exactly toilet reading material.

This is the only magazine that gives you a truly global perspective on what is happening in business, politics and current affairs.

The Economist's brand personality is about enjoying thinking deeply and differently. It is about finding the best solution, and about out-thinking your peers. It is a map of new and challenging ideas. It allows readers to feel that they have a better understanding than other people of important issues and problems, and that they are participating in finding a solution. Indeed, it gives them pleasure to feel that they are participating.

It is a unique and entertaining formula that is very different from that of its competitors.

Truthfully the Economist must be the only "business" magazine that a sane person who isn't a director of a FTSE 100 company can read. It is actually slightly unfair to call it a "business" magazine. About 30% of the weekly content is business news and economics issues, about 60% is world affairs, and about 10% is dedicated to its superb science and technology section.

The Economist has mastered the skill of breaking very difficult issues down into comprehensible articles (or sometimes, just admitting that it can't, usually in the science section). Whilst showing a preference for UK issues, it gives truly global coverage (does any other news magazine devote remotely as much time to central Africa or the Caribbean?). And best of all it is written in an engaging and readable style. And second best of all, it mostly consists of articles, rather than adverts. Like all magazines, one can agree or disagree with much of what they say (another refreshing habit they have is admitting when they were wrong about something), but I find it to have a very refreshing perspective on world events, and far cry from the predictable knee jerk reactions that one gets from other press publications to world events.

The Economist is a prestigious weekly news magazine. The editorials are highly stimulating and most of the sections offer a view of

-European

-US

-World affairs news.

There are some supplements and the most important analysis that I saw in the Economist was an article on the Euro and the transition to the single currency system.