In the last month or so we’ve noticed that our service from Netflix has slowed down considerably. While they used to mail us movies the same day they received them, now they wait one or two days before mailing them. My brother, also a subscriber, was so enraged by this slowdown and the inability to communicate with customer service that he canceled and join Blockbusters instead. I was reserving judgement until I decided to do a small survey on a popular bulletin board – the majority of those who responded had noticed a slow down as well. One poster said she asked customer service about it and they’d said they’d had such an increase in business that it was taking them time to adjust. Maybe, or maybe they did it on purpose. Is it a coincidence that the slowdown followed the reduction of pricing to which they were forced by competitive pressures?
A January posting at the Digital Lifestyles blog provides an answer. According to research firm SG Cowen & Co, which has been carrying out a survey of DVD postal rental services in four US markets, Netflix has reduced its service by buying less new releases and shipping less movies. This saves them money at the price of users like us.
A quick search online shows that this deterioration of service has been noticed by many users, and it’s even been covered by the local news. Apparently, it is Netflix’s policy to slow down shipments to heavy users, hoping they’ll be driven away, no doubt. But the slowdown seems to hit more than heavy users, however.
In any case, we’re considering canceling. Does anyone know of any alternatives?
BTW, their secret customer service numbers seem to be 800-279-5688 or 888-638-3549
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Try Blockbuster. It is not as fast as netflix used to be, but it doesn’t have to. At $15 the wait is more bearable. Also you get 2 coupons to get movies at a store (when you don’t want to wait) and they ship on Saturday, which Netflix doen’t. In short, I measure good service on cost per movie, and in March that was 74 cents per movie.
David Pogue, now of the New York Times, just did a piece on this topic.
The slowdown is common to both services and they explain it as only delaying the top picks for heavy users so that everyone is getting a movie, or something to that effect.
The additional issue was raised that Blockbuster edits movies, and also doesn’t indicate they’ve done so. For me, that’s the deal breaker for Blockbuster in person or by mail, regardless of price.
To summarize what he decided, Blockbuster has better pricing, NetFlix better service.
Tim Holmes