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How Is Netflix Handling Complaints About the Recent Price Hike? Not Very Well, Says Analyst

Jul 14, 2011  •  Post A Comment

After a wave of customer backlash to its 60% price hike for its popular movie rental service, Netflix is now under fire for what one Wall Street analyst says is a poor strategy in dealing with customer complaints, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Richard Greenfield, an analyst with BTIG Research, told clients he and his staff placed 35 calls to Netflix on Wednesday in the course of a few hours. Only 15 calls got through to a rep and only after wait times of 9 to 15 minutes per successful call. One rep said she was looking at 471 customers on hold, Greenfield said in the report.

Sometimes the reps told him to cancel streaming service, while others told him to cancel DVDs in order to keep costs at $7.99 per month. Other times he was told to alternate between the two plans.

“There was literally no (rhyme) or reason to the responses we got,” he said. "There was simply no promo or save technique to offer us a discount to retain our business. This would appear to illustrate that Netflix is simply not concerned with the prospect of losing customers.”

9 Comments

  1. “This would appear to illustrate that Netflix is simply not concerned with the prospect of losing customers.”
    I have repeatedly thought about signing up for Netflix, then I get another Netflix pop-up on my computer, which irks me enough that I don’t join. It seems to me that Netflix isn’t concerned with customers at all, as long as they keep sending in their money.

  2. I think we need to demonstrate in practice that we are angry by canceling our membership so they begin caring.
    BR

  3. I think Netflix subscribers are missing the point. The company wants to move to total streaming, (snail mail is expensive). Streaming on demand is not only cheaper, it’s where all programming will end up in probably less then ten years. The main instrument of delivery will be the internet which will eventually replace cable TV and to a certain degree satellite TV.

  4. I understand they want to move to all streaming eventually, and I’m not mad about the rate changes. What I’m angry about is the streaming service itself. Shows and movies that are available for streaming one day will be DVD mail delivery only the next. Its not as big a deal for movies, but I was in the middle of seasons for two different television series and now suddenly they’re unavailable. If they want people to move to their streaming service, they have to make it much more reliable!

  5. Dear Netflix,
    I doubt I will return for these reasons:
    You started me out with streaming and DVDs by mail for a decent price. You then decided that I wasn’t paying enough for you service and raised your price approximately 28%. I didn’t mind that too much. Then you decided I still wasn’t paying enough and in a really cool ploy you split the streaming service and DVDs by mail into 2 separate services. Thus raising the combined price for the service I had before to somewhere around 32% more. So I decided to get out before you were collecting my complete monthly income.
    If you can see your way to getting back to a combined service price comparable to what I was paying before you split the services I would consider coming back. Until then…I will refrain from using your services.

  6. I can’t believe this hike in price! We’d go with streaming if Netflix offered a better selection. We enjoy the older shows and movies and many of the ones we watch were taken off. Even with the one DVD at a time included it was barely worth the price of 9.99 a month they went up to last time. There will be no reason to stay with Netflix at this point for us!

  7. I am not mad about going to streaming, I am mad about the movies available! I could not find anything worth watching, so I pulled out the top most popular movies of all time from IMDb. There are movies from the 1940s in there. 100 movies. I entered every single one of them into the search for streaming movies. Not ONE and I mean NOT ONE of these movies were availble for streaming. Classics like Casablanca, or Gone with the Wind. Nada. No Godfather movies, no star war movies, nothing. Not to even mention BAD modern movies like My Three Amigos. All the movies are these movies nobody has ever heard of, B movies that nobody wants to see. Its like Netflix is saying “FU” to all its customers, especailly those who have been Netflix users since they first started. Where does one go to rent movies now? Blockbuster is gone in our area and RedBox only has a small selection.

  8. I am not mad about going to streaming, I am mad about the movies available! I could not find anything worth watching, so I pulled out the top most popular movies of all time from IMDb. There are movies from the 1940s in there. 100 movies. I entered every single one of them into the search for streaming movies. Not ONE and I mean NOT ONE of these movies were availble for streaming. Classics like Casablanca, or Gone with the Wind. Nada. No Godfather movies, no star war movies, nothing. Not to even mention BAD modern movies like My Three Amigos. All the movies are these movies nobody has ever heard of, B movies that nobody wants to see. Its like Netflix is saying “FU” to all its customers, especailly those who have been Netflix users since they first started. Where does one go to rent movies now? Blockbuster is gone in our area and RedBox only has a small selection.

  9. I signed up for a streaming service. For the past three months Netflix has cut off my service abruptly on the 30th of each month. For various reasons including the Great Recession in the United States at the moment automatic payments don’t go thru exactly on the 30th. When I called Netflix to complain to the customer service reps arrogantly asserted they were entitled to payment no matter what on the 30th of the month but they were not required to provide a full months worth of subscription streaming. The web site states that the payment is due for the period cleverly getting around what the period charged actually is yet being very angry and abusive on the phone when they have not received payment for what the period actually is.

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