As of last month, we had been with Blockbuster’s online/store rental service for somewhere between 2-3 years. At the time we had a Netflix account, however we decided that the ability trade movies in-store and to have a coupon towards a game rental was worth the $3 increase in service fee’s. So, we switched to blockbuster. The ability to trade in-store was invaluable at the time, as we hadn’t really established ourselves in Texas yet, and we’re watching movies to pass the time. Additionally, I rented games via the coupons for my new Playstation 2, and later when I got my Wii and XBox 360.
However, if you follow my blog, you’ve noticed that we’ve had quite a few problems with them recently. First, it started with a late fee for returning a movie that had been rented through a trade-in. While the receipt for the rental had extra text indicating the new fee’s, it was never brought to our attention, nor did the receipt indicate how much the fee’s would be. We begrudgingly went ahead and paid the late fee and contacted Blockbuster support. The response from Blockbuster regarding how the store handled the new fee’s was less than satisfactory.
My biggest grief of course being the lack of communication from Blockbuster regarding this policy changes. The straw the finally broke the camel’s back was another recent chance in trade-in policy, such that a trade-in is considered to be part of the online services queue. So if you have a maximum of two movies out at a time, and I return one to Blockbuster for an in-store movie, Blockbuster used to go ahead and ship out the next movie in my queue. However, if you were do the same thing now, a movie in your queue will not be shipped until you return the in-store movie.
Again, as I’ve said on other posts, the ability to change their policies is their own prerogative. However, the lack of communication about these changes is my biggest problems. In fact, my posts regarding this have been some of the most popular posts on my site. Blockbuster Quietly Reinstates Late Fees has more comments than any other post on my block.
With all these problems, and with the new XBox 360, we decided to switch back to Netflix since we never had these sorts of problems with them. The new streaming capability is a big plus, minus the available set of movies and shows. In fact, we were part of the customers that recently received a pro-active credit on our account due to connection issues with the Netflix/Xbox service. There’s a very important word that Blockbuster needs to learn, regarding their customer service: Pro-active. I don’t exactly expect you to give a 2% credit for problems, however I’d be nice if you simply warn us before you change how your going to operate.
So that all being said, Goodbye Blockbuster, and good riddance…
I work at blockbuster. I have for almost two years and three stores (in two states). And it’s hell. Aside from all the stupid customers we deal with on a daily basis, the corporation itself has major structural problems.
Blockbuster Online acts as if it’s a seperate entity from the stores. When they change their policy, such as when they changed what they consider to be a month (it used to be from the 1st to the last day), they didn’t tell customers when they changed it to the billing date to billing date. So, when they came into the store wondering why it said they had no more rentals left, we were all at a loss until a customer happened to talk with the online support to find out the change. Another change was when they made the online exchanges have no due dates. Ya, that was great for the customers, except they forgot to tell anyone that the next online one won’t be sent back until it’s return.
With in-store policies, I pride myself in my perserverence of informing customers of the policy changes. At the store I’m at currently, we even mark the account when we have the converstaion with the customer. In some cases, the customer doesn’t even listen to what I have to say, probably figuring I’m trying some weird sales pitch as I’m trying to drive into their heads that things have changed at Blockbuster. But in other cases, all too frequently a customer hasn’t been to the store for a while, so they miss the month period where we’re explaining the new policy to every customer, so they are taken by surprise by it when they return to find charges, etc. on their account. Also, not very many stores make such an effort to keep the customers well informed.
My store just changed their policy, again, back to $5 rentals for all movies, and re-instating the late fees. The change happened two days after the employees were told, which in itself sucks. But, since I work every Monday, it was my job to give the bad news to all the customers.
With this change, I feel every customer I talked with actually comprehended everything I said, and we had discussions about how this policy affects them. Almost every customer thanked me for being so clear, and made sure I understood they weren’t mad at me, but every one was mad at Blockbuster corporation, and many said they would not be returning.
I suppose the point of my rant was simply, blockbuster sucks, for the customers and employees, because often we know as much as you do.