The News Blog over at CNET has a fun story about an old friend of mine.
The article is summed up in the sentance “There really is no salvation for Blockbuster at this point.” Amen, brother.
There is nothing as sweet as “I told you so” on a corporate level.
Within minutes, that’s right MINUTES, they wrote back to me! Could this be some kind of apology? A way of fixing what they’ve done wrong? What could it be?
Thanks for contacting BLOCKBUSTER Online Customer Care.
I’m sorry to hear that you’ve canceled your subscription, Brian. Your subscription has already been successfully canceled as of September 21. If you still have any movies out, please remember that we must have them back within 30 days so you are not charged for outstanding DVDs. You may want to write down your current e-mail address and password in case you would like to reactivate your account in the future.
Because we don’t want to lose your business, I’d like to offer you some other plans I think you might be interested in:
Online Only–3 at a time for $16.99. Unlimited online rentals. You will receive unlimited online DVDs, up to 3 at one time.
Online Only–1 at a time for $4.99. 2 rentals per month. You will receive up to 2 online DVDs, 1 at one time.
If any of these plans interest you, please let me know and I’ll reactivate your account with the new subscription starting on your next billing cycle. If not, then I’m sorry to see you go and hope you reconsider in the future!
Rogerick
Customer Care Associate
BLOCKBUSTER Online
Uh, no.
They sent me a survey.
I finally got the “change your plan or we’ll cancel your ass” email from Blockbuster today. Well, I think I’ll change my plan to the “go fuck yourself option”. I get on their website, login, and click on “cancel subscription”.
If only it were that easy.
Step one: about 20 checkboxes. “Please tell us the reasons you cancelled.” Fine. I pick about 8 of them. Unsatisfactory service, no issue resolution, issues with getting the correct movies, etc.
“Please leave us a comment about why you are canceling.” A standard text area. I write a few paragraphs about my opinion of my experience and all the ways they could have kept me.
Press submit.
ERROR: “Please limit your response to 255 characters.” Uh… I trim it down to a few sentences.
Press submit.
Now I see 8 radio buttons. “Please choose the primary reason you are canceling.” The choices are all the checks I gave them on the last page. If I could only choose one, why did they let me pick 8? Are web form elements new to these people? Do they have an eighth grader running the web show over there?*
I choose one. Press submit.
Now, instead of showing me a “you’ve canceled” screen, they’ve dumped me on a “sign up for all our great deals” screen. No thanks. Press confirm.
The end.
Of course I still wanted to tell them all the stuff I didn’t get to write due to the 255 char limit. So I go back to the online service form I love so much…
Your customer service is truly awful. Like nail-in-the-eye awful. I had several issues needing resolution, but each time I was given a response which was OBVIOUSLY a form letter…many times not making any sense at all.
Also, your strange policy of “we’ll send your queued movies in whatever order we feel like” is pretty silly. Believe it or not, sometime movies belong in a series. (And don’t give me any of that “short wait” BS – nobody is watching the first disc of the second season of The West Wing. I’ve already had that conversation with your form letter robot.)
Also, your recent bone-headed decision to “give the customer more options” (which is really “give us more money or lose the best feature – in-store trade-ins”) made the decision to return to Netflix that much easier. They have better selection, cheaper prices, and I’ve actually had customer service issues resolved. The only advantage you had was the physical stores and allowing unlimited trade-ins was great for those that watch a lot of movies (even though my local Blockbuster has a horrible selection). And now you want an additional $10 per month for that? Uh…no. C-ya.
Hint: a happy customer will give you money. Repeat that to yourself a few times before bed each night.
* No disrespect to eight graders intended.
It’s been 10 days. What ho! A response!
Thanks for contacting BLOCKBUSTER Online Customer Care.
I appreciate your reply. I’m sorry you’re still waiting for “West Wing: The Complete Second Season – Disc 1 (2000).” Please remember that the first disc of a first season are the most popular and have a tendency to have the greatest demand than any other disc for that series.
I do acknowledge your comments and suggestions. I’m so sorry for your troubles, Brian.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you today.
Always here to help,
Glen
Customer Care Associate
BLOCKBUSTER Online
Thank god they are “always here to help”! Also worth noting that now I’m dealing with Glen and not Glenda. Same person? Are we pals now? What’s going on here?
So I waited five weeks…oh wait, nevermind, I replied immediately…
Read your response a few times and ask yourself this question: “Is the first disc of the second season the same as the first disc of the first season.”
I am canceling my Blockbuster subscription on Monday because of your continuously horrible customer service, suddenly crappy subscription plan and general “can only respond via form letter” email response policy.
I’ll be happy giving Netflix less money for more product.
Cya.
brian
They sent me a survey.
When you submit a concern to the BB support site, it tells you that your concern will be responded to within four hours. Here we are on the next day and an email arrived in my inbox.
Thanks for contacting BLOCKBUSTER Online Customer Care.
I’m sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. I know that you are still waiting for your movie “West Wing: The Complete Second Season – Disc 1 (2000).” This movie is still in “short wait” status. “Short Wait” means the title currently has more requests than copies available for shipment. We anticipate that we should be able to ship you the title within the next few weeks, provided a distribution center near your has a copy in stock. Please keep in mind that due to the constant change in availability factors, even if it has the highest priority in your queue, we can’t guarantee that the title will be shipped within the estimated timeframe.
Unfortunately, we cannot shipped the movie “West Wing: The Complete Second Season – Disc 1 (2000).” Still this movie is not available.
I hope this information helps, Brian. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.
Always here to help,
Glenda
Customer Care Associate
BLOCKBUSTER Online
Ok. Take note of how they clearly have some database with the movie title in it so they can press a button in their form letter and it will say “West Wing: The Complete Second Season – Disc 1 (2000).”…just like you’d say it casual conversation.
Here we go. My response:
Yes, I do understand that limited supply of discs results in a waiting period and that “the next few weeks” can be over six weeks for a disc that can’t possibly be in high demand. (As I said in my first letter.)
However, you proved my point straight out: “provided a distribution center near your has a copy in stock”. What you *should* do, as a DVD powerhouse, is go to another distribution center to get discs that are out of stock at my local center. 1) Call it a “short wait” 2) After two weeks, if it still hasn’t shipped, **be proactive in keeping your customers happy** and find a copy somewhere in your nationwide network of stores and distribution centers. Unless Blockbuster only owns a single copy of The West Wing, Season 2, disc 1…
What’s even lamer is that disc 3 arrived first, then a few weeks later, disc 2…you’d think that if there is an order to the discs, that the customer would want to watch them in order! (This happens with TV shows I get from you all the time…so frustrating!)
Hopefully you can see past the standard “you’ll have to wait” responses and realize how silly this all is, and why more and more people are bailing from your “Totally Limited Access” plan to go with the big N. I don’t have a business degree, but I do know that keeping customers generates more revenue than losing them.
I’m one-foot out the door already.
brian
Totally Dissatisfied w/Access
And then they sent me a survey. Nice.
Still no word on whether my plan will change. We’ll see. If I don’t pick at it, maybe it will just go away.
Rachel and I have become addicted to The West Wing. It’s a great show, don’t know why we didn’t watch it when it was broadcast. Neither of us are really into politics but it’s so well written that even the non-political minds of people like us can follow along. The characters are great and the dialog is very witty. We got the whole first season from Blockbuster Totally Limited Access and then we queued up the second season.
Woohoo! A blue envelope in the mailbox! This is the next season of WW, the conclusion to the great cliffhanger of the first season! Wait a second…this is the second season, but it’s the third disc. We wanted to start with the first disc! Well, maybe the first and second are on their way. No worries.
Next day: second disc arrives along with some other movie. Uh…wtf? I check the online queue and it says the first disc has a “short wait”. Um…ok. We’ll give it a few days.
About a week goes by…still “short wait”. We decide that we should return the second and third discs, cuz they are just sitting on our table and we’ll just re-order them once we see the first disc.
Another week. And another. And three more. This is getting bizarre. This season aired in 2000. I can’t image that it’s more popular than most new releases. The last email exchange with these people was so productive, I thought I’d write to them again, just to find out what’s going on. Maybe something is just stuck and they can nudge it back into place.
Now, I understand that sometimes there are more requests than copies and that can cause a slowdown in shipping, but it seems that 6 weeks is longer than a “short wait” and that unless America is having a crazy spontaneous love affair with the second season of The West Wing, that maybe you should find another copy from another shipping center (like Netflix would).
Every time I turn around, there is another reason to be upset with Total Access…please help us make this a happy ending!
Thank you,
brian
That’s right. You heard me. I mentioned the Big N. Oh, snap!
Hopefully “Ryan” will write back to me. I miss my pen pal, we never talk anymore.
Tada! A response from “Ryan” finally came!
By the way, I watched some movie recently, I think it was Hot Fuzz where the main character just started a job at some customer service phone bank.
Yeah, it’s just like that. Anyway, “Ryan” wrote back…
I am very sorry it took so long to answer your concern, Brian. I appreciate your patience. Please call us at 866-692-2789 Monday through Friday 8:00AM – 6:00PM Central. I am really sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you, Brian. I am looking forward on the immediate resolution of this concern. Thank you very much for your patience and understanding.
Warm regards,
Ryan
Customer Care Associate
BLOCKBUSTER Online
So yeah. They pawned me off to some phone number? I don’t think I’ll be calling. At least they did express concern on helping me resolve “this concern”. Nothing like sincerity to make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
I still don’t know if my plan will change or if I can keep my unlimited rentals. What’s even sillier about this is that everytime they write back, they send me an email with a link to fill out some survey as to “did we resolve your issue”. It’s about 15 screens long. All I needed was a large button labeled “NO”.
