CDS Global and Rodale Inc. Expand Relationship With Customer Service for Print and Digital Magazines

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Jul 15, 2013) -  CDS Global, a leader in end-to-end business process outsourcing, announced today that it has expanded its business relationship with Rodale, publisher of some of the best-known health and wellness lifestyle magazines, including Prevention, Runner's World and Men's Health, and books, such as the "Eat This Not That!" series, to include customer service for the publisher's brands.

Rodale will rely on CDS Global's customer service representatives to handle close to 2 million calls and upward of 200,000 inbound emails annually. The publisher will also count on CDS Global's intelligent up-sell and cross-sell platform to drive additional revenue by presenting subscriber-specific offers to customers calling in for service. This proprietary intelligent software has generated tens of millions of dollars in additional revenues for CDS Global's clients and turns the call centers, traditionally viewed as a business expense, into profit centers for many companies.

CDS Global has built a suite of customer care services including live agent phone and email support, interactive voice response capabilities, call monitoring and level-one technical support for subscribers accessing digital content on tablet devices such as the iPad.

"Rodale is pleased to expand our long-time relationship with CDS Global and to bring our customer service offering back to the U.S.," said Maria Rodale, Chairman & CEO, Rodale Inc. "We're looking forward to providing customer service for our audiences that is as efficient, accessible and as user-friendly as possible."

"CDS Global understands the importance of premier customer service and is honored to fulfill Rodale's customer service needs," said Debra Janssen, chief operating officer, CDS Global. "The customer experience has become the critical differentiator in today's marketplace. The CDS Global call center is a front-line extension of Rodale, and we look forward to delivering high-quality service to their consumers."

In addition to customer service, CDS Global currently provides a full suite of services to Rodale's magazine brands, which includes circulation and order management, fulfillment of print and digital editions, mailing services, e-commerce capabilities and in-depth reporting. The magazine circulation operational partnership is particularly noteworthy because CDS Global provides dedicated staff that operates as part of the Rodale team.

"CDS Global and Rodale have nurtured a rich business relationship that has lasted more than 20 years," said Janssen. "Onshore customer service is a logical expansion to the suite of services we currently provide for Rodale. We are proud to serve one of the country's elite media companies and to support Rodale's ongoing print, online, tablet and mobile publishing strategy from every angle."

To address Rodale's customer service needs, as well as the incoming customer service business from a second large client, CDS Global has hired a combined 135 customer care representatives at its Des Moines and Boone, Iowa facilities, which the company announced in April.

About CDS Global

For more than 40 years, CDS Global has been a leading provider of outsourced business solutions to multiple industries, delivering an array of innovative and flexible eCommerce, order management, fulfillment, payment processing and marketing services. The company's comprehensive and integrated suite of solutions maximizes the value of data, effectively managing the interactions that CDS Global clients have with their customers and creating a positive impact on each organization's bottom line.

CDS Global is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hearst Corporation, one of the nation's largest diversified media and information companies. Corporate headquarters are located in Des Moines, Iowa, with offices across Iowa and in Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Learn more at www.cds-global.com. 

About Rodale Inc.

Rodale is a global lifestyle company with a mission to inspire and enable people to improve their lives and the world around them. Through a broad portfolio of award-winning media properties, Rodale engages with more than 70 million people around the world through multiple distribution channels, including magazines, books, online, mobile, e-commerce, direct-to-consumer, and video. Rodale publishes some of the best-known health and wellness lifestyle magazine brands, including Men's Health, Prevention, Women's Health, Runner's World, Bicycling, Running Times, and Organic Gardening, and is one of the largest independent book publishers in the United States with a collection of bestselling titles that include Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, The Kind Diet, Eat This, Not That! and The Honest Life. Widely regarded as a digital leader in the healthy living space with properties such as Fitbie.com and RODALE'S, a new eco-luxury online store, the company continues to find new ways to connect with audiences across developing technologies. The company is also an established leader in direct-response marketing with more than 27 million active customers in its database. To learn more about Rodale, visit www.rodaleinc.com.