12 December 2003 - I guess this happens sometimes. I feel the need to both rave and rant at Netflix. 

First the rave: What an incredible service! I love it. Their web site is both interesting, informative, and functional. I don't think you can say that about my site. I have fun exploring it and looking for new movies. Their recommendation engine is interesting, but so far it hasn't pulled up anything unusual for me. Of course it's hard to be sure.

Once a movie is on my "to be rented" list I lose all track of how it got on the list. Did Vance suggest it? Alan? Marty? The Netflix recommendation engine? Since my rental list is long and it takes months after a request before I see the movie, I just can't remember who suggested it. I wish their web site would at least note that the movie came from their recommendation engine. Then I could rave about how good it is. Instead I have to say, "not sure". I'm not looking forward to the day my rental queue is finally empty. At that point I don't know what else I'd want to rent and it will be time to quit the service.

Anyway, on to the rants. First, isn't a big one. In fact it is a very small one, but it does tell a story about choosing your customer service reps well. Our story begins with an suggestion I sent in on their "talk to us" form.

My suggestion:

The replied within a few hours and that is just spectacular. However, here's what they said:

Hmmm. Nice guy for sure. Customer driven for sure. Customer focused? Not yet. Here's my reply.

Now the interesting thing is that the next reply comes from someone else. Do emails just go to a random rep, or did the same guy get my reply and sense my sarcasm? Maybe he bumped it up to the next level? 

However it happened, this reply puts the cap on the case and gets me off their back. Nice job on the close.

Lastly, here's my biggest issue with them. You can get a better deal if you try to cancel your service!  One friend of mine called to cancel her subscription. "Why?", they ask her. "I just don't watch enough movies anymore", she says. "How about if we give you a deal: only $15 a month but you only get two movies at a time." "OK she says."

Hmmm. Now another friend hears this story. He likes Netflix but two movies would be enough for him. He searches their web site and can't find this deal. He calls and they say "never heard of it." Then he calls them and says he wants to cancel. "Why?", they ask him. A-ha! He gets off the phone with the same deal she got.

A third friend has heard these stories now. He just calls to cancel, quickly gets the new deal and gets off the phone.

Crap. I hate the fact that companies treat leaving customers better than they treat current customers. This rant used to apply to cell phone companies. New customers got a new phone for $50, existing customers got the same phone for $200. I was willing to commit to another year but they wouldn't hear of it. OK, I walked across the street and signed up with their competitor and got my new phone for $50. At least now the cell phone companies have stopped that nonsense.

Who else does this? Credit card companies! Try calling up your credit card company to cancel one. When they ask why tell them the rate is too high and you've got a better deal from another company. They will lower your rate immediately. This is well documented on Paul's site. That is terrible. Just terrible.