Thank you, Netflix, for showing business owners everywhere how to kill half your stock and lose a substantial number of customers due to bad decisions.
When I was telling hubby what Netflix had been doing lately, he shook his head in disbelief. “What are they thinking?”
I shrugged. “They’re smoking crack or something.” They’re not really smoking crack, or doing any drugs as far as anyone can guess. But their decision-making lately has been very erratic, irresponsible, and very much at odds with what customers want and expect.
First, they announced that they were changing their pricing structure. This is not the first time they have adjusted their available packages and have tweaked prices. But to charge twice as much in order to keep whatever package customers had before? That’s a substantial change. My household had to decide between streaming video, or DVDs through the mail. We were happy customers who used both options because sometimes a movie or series was available for one option and not the other. We decided in the end to go with streaming video, because we’re techy enough to download what isn’t available. We would rather not, but we can’t justify the new cost to keep both streaming video and DVDs.
Next, Netflix announced they were going to entirely remove DVDs from the Netflix site, and create a whole separate service, with an “edgy” (read: horrible) name. One would think they would have done their homework before 1) coming up with this new name and 2) unveiling it to the world; but nope, the CEO himself addressed his customers in a video, apologized to everyone, and then announced both the split and the name of the new DVD service. Later, Netflix, and indeed the world, would find out that a pot-smoking, very offensive gentleman already “owns”/uses the Twitter username “Qwikster”.
In yet another blow, Starz will not be renewing their arrangement with Netflix et al, reducing the number of popular movies available through the troubled video delivery company. Surely Netflix will strike agreements with other companies, to stream their content, but wow.
Netflix has been changing a lot of their functionality, in a time of great financial concern across the nation, which seems a bad idea for any company who wants to remain solvent. And despite the uniqueness of Netflix’s service back when they first started in the late 1990s, a number of companies have popped up since to give Netflix a run for their money, providers of DVDs, streaming video, and other arrangements that Netflix has or will be offering the public. With Netflix’s mind-boggling decisions of late, those other companies now look a lot more positive to individuals who want to move away from the madness of Netflix and try another service.
I know many small companies who would love to have a million or more disillusioned customers turn to them and away from a giant of a service who doesn’t seem to listen to their customers. The CEO of Netflix doesn’t seem concerned about the lose of customers and stock. And saying sorry in an insincere fashion seems almost as insulting as all the other goofy decisions they’ve made of late.
I think it would behoove Mr. Hastings to hire at least one Public Relations professional to, oh, I don’t know, make it at least look like the CEO is relating to the public at all…
Personally, I would have liked to have seen my existing account grandfathered into whatever is going on with the site now. I liked the price my account was at, and I liked the functionality of one DVD at a time and unlimited streaming. I would have liked to have continued what I had. I would have accepted a limit of how many DVDs I can receive in a month, or a limit on how many movies I can watch streaming over my Roku, also over a month’s time. Obviously, neither is going to happen…
I think that the next thing to be addressed is the notion of unlimited streaming videos. Surely they will limit that in an attempt to recover money and resources lost with what has already occurred.
Perhaps after the CEO gets back from his latest trip to the Caribbean, his way of destressing after all the hubbub he’s stirred up lately. Surely he’s earned it. :P
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Edit 10/10/11: Looks like Mashable, who likes to stir up considerable dust with their rumor mongering if the iPhone not-5 is any indication, asks their readers if it’s time for CEO Reed Hastings of Netflix to step down. As of this date, Netflix stock is now valued at one-third their original value that it was at the beginning of last month, when all these changes started going down. I think that stockholders would be onto something to call for the CEO’s removal. Someone’s head must proverbially roll, why not put that responsibility squarely on the gentleman who made all of these dizzying changes come about?
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