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Is this more evidence that Netflix doesn’t get it?

Posted on September 6, 2011 , by Steve Bernstein
CATEGORIES: Lessons Learned
TAGS: 

[Update Sept 22: Check out the link at the bottom of this post for a funny trail from like-minded customers! – Steve]

Like many Netflix subscribers I was incensed at how Netflix treated me as a customer and so I canceled my subscription today (my billing date is in 2 days).   I was pleased that they made it easy to cancel (unlike many of subscription services that create even more detractors by setting up confusing and time-wasting cancelation processes).  And then they directed me to their cancelation survey…

  • It’s 3 pages long when printed.  It’s generic and doesn’t respect my time.  Many options aren’t even relevant to my subscription plan.  If they don’t care to invest time in this, why should I?
  • They start off with the Recommend question.  I’m all for Net Promoter-based segmentation, but I wonder why they think this is the right question to start off a cancelation survey?  And I’ll refrain from over-emphasizing their proprietary scale… how on earth are they going to use this?
Why does Netflix use "Recommend" when someone is canceling...and why corrupt the scale?

Why does Netflix use "Recommend" when someone is canceling...and why corrupt the scale?

  • They ask me why I canceled and the reasons presented show that it’s all about them.  I mean, every one of the options starts with “I,” as in “I needed to cut costs” (which is the first choice).  It’s not about me; it’s about how you treated me.
  • Then they ask me a bunch of market research questions.  To what extent do they think they’ll get trustworthy data from this survey?  I’m sure they have other market research channels and they merely want to triangulate the feedback here, just seems like a misguided way to treat customers that you want to win back.

To what extent am I over-reacting?

Update Sept 22:  I thought this was a funny response to Reed Hasings’ email… perhaps much better than my rant above!  Check it out:
http://www.happyplace.com/10642/a-series-of-progressively-more-insane-follow-up-emails-from-netflix-ceo