Netflix just did something that was hard to do--but over-due: They listened to their customers!

The news was announced just five minutes ago.  

Everybody who views video media knows of the recent difficulties of Netflix.  If you not, here it is in sound bite form:  Immensely successful movie renting company tries to make a transition from old media markets [i.e., DVDs-by-mail] to new media format [[i.e., streaming video] by doing three things that customers and prospects hate: Raising rates, making it more difficult to do business with the company, and announcing your "move" in a sneaky way!  

I can't gain-say the price increase--it was likely due and merited; but I derided the announcement--literally occurring at 2am in the morning via eMail--to break Netflix, in effect, into two companies:  the old Neflix would sell streaming video services and the new "qwikster.com" that would keep sending DVDs via snail-mail.  [It always seems kind of odd to me that even the names were a little backwards in their designation, but who's prepared to be that picky??]  

No, it didn't make any sense to most people.

Well, that decision--how it was announced and what it amounted to--drove customers crazy:  the stock continued to drop to half of its value a year ago and the publicity of how the company would change from what people were used to, well, that was simply enormous.  

The company claimed that they were now serving two product-markets and, thus, that that called for two separate "companies"; which didn't seem right to most marketing analysts--simply because there is a very long list of firms that serve multiple and diverse markets all under one corporate umbrella and website!  

Whew! There'll be no divorce.

Five minutes ago Reed Hastings authorized the Netflix team to write me--a loyal customer still--a letter saying that they'd changed their corporate mind and that the firm would NOT morph into two "companies" and NOT two web sites and NOW two bills but, instead, stay put, just a most people preferred and were used to.  

Dear Keith,

It is clear that for many of our members two web sites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password…in other words, no Qwikster.

While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.

We're constantly improving our streaming selection. We've recently added....

We value you as a member, and we are committed to making Netflix the best place to get your movies & TV shows.

Respectfully,

The Netflix Team

'Way to go, Netflix!  You did what most firms find very difficult to do:  Change your mind and publicly say you made a mistake.  I'm impressed that you were able to see the folly of your prior, flawed decision.  Maybe it was the reported massive defections that drove you to this conclusion--but the corporate execs in a lot of other similar situations wouldn't have reconsidered and come to the point of admitting it.  But who's worry what the explanation is--most of people are happy to have the family back together again!  

Hey Netflix, why didn't you do what you're good at???

Now that everybody's back together, I have just two questions: How did this all happen in the first place?  Here you are a company that always asking me how I'd rate the movies then send me, when I got their shipments, when I sent them back--and they completely overlooked asking us what we thought of the once-upon-a-time concept of screwing up the company with important, customer-relevant changes.  How did you guy's overlook doing what you're so good at with something that was so important???

My other question is more practical:  What can we buy the URL "quikster.com" for?  Bet you won't need that for a very long time!!!

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