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Bulah Landaker
In the video streaming business, technical glitches are inevitable. If there is a service disruption or streaming issue, Netflix will not only put out a statement, but also personally email all customers who may have been affected.
As soon as a customer signs up, they are personally welcomed and provided key information and pointed in the direction of when, where and how to get in touch if they ever encounter a problem. This way, customers can reply immediately if there are any pressing questions or easily refer to the email if a question ever arises. And they are doing something right: Netflix registers an astounding 93% conversion rate on free trials4.
People consume content all the time and issues arise on weekends, holidays and after hours. In order to provide superior support, Netflix not only offers self-help solutions to many problems through a robust help center, but also provides English live support 24/7 through live chat or via phone5.
Netflix is a leader not only in the streaming industry, but also globally recognized for its customer experience. The company has remained the biggest streaming company in a fast-changing and highly competitive industry based on its ability to personalize every customer interaction, anticipate the next issue and harness data to continuously improve. Companies across industries can implement Netflix customer obsession strategies within their own organizations to compete on customer happiness.
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One day recently, I came to realise that my children, aged 7-12, were able to watch 15 and 18 rated movies on #Netflix. My 12 year old daughter was even downloading 18 content to watch on her phone. I won't go into detail on what brought this to my attention - but suffice it to say it involved senior teaching staff at her secondary school. Not cool.
It turns out that Netflix had changed their password entry mechanism on my 'Smart TV'. Now, I move the cursor over each number of the passcode, press return, and receive visual feedback that a number has been entered in the form of the number, say number 5, flashing at me.
Consequently, it is impossible for any TV to be watched without the four digits of the passcode being highlighted to any crafty kid watching. It doesn't take a genius child to work out that this means they can watch whatever they like.
Here's how. I complained via Netflix's online chat function. I expected outstanding service from Netflix - after all, isn't improved customer service one of the benefits of the Tech Boom? Aren't tech companies more aware than any other how connected the world is, how complaints and recommendations can be directly linked, through data, to improved financial results?
Boy, was I mistaken. The agent I was chatting to was, initially, very polite. She made some light-hearted, silicon-valley-tone-of-voice replies, but basically told me that she could do nothing except refer this to the engineers. The engineers then would prioritise a fix as and when they felt necessary, comparing my problem to other problems raised by Netflix Executives.
Clearly, without a senior inside sponsor, my issue would not get resolved. It felt as if the agent's powers were limited, that she had some approved buzzwords but could do nothing else to help an unhappy customer.
This in itself is not unusual. Often, first-line-of-response staff are too junior or too inexperienced to deal with anything other than basic questions about usability. Certainly, they're unlikely to spot a bad PR issue like Netflix enabling underage kids to consume inappropriate content. That's something that a more senior person might spot. Ideally, a Director, someone with oversight of Corporate/Public Affairs, who would realise that underage kids + inappropriate content + school complaint = potential PR disaster.
I then asked to speak to HIS manager. Here's where it got weird. He told me no, he would not, could not, may not, ought not, cannot under any circumstances put me in touch with someone more senior than him to complain. He wasn't allowed to, and in any case he could not give me the email address of any senior Head or Director of department in Netflix. No, he couldn't tell me who the Director of Customer Experience was. No, the Customer Experience VP would not want to hear from an unhappy customer. And No, the Corporate/Public Affairs team would not want to hear from a customer about anything that has the keywords "Kids + Danger".
Oh, no. I forgot, he helpfully pointed me to www.makeit.netflix.com where 'customers could contribute to making Netlix even more excellent'. Makeit.Netflix.com is clearly a joke site - an attempt to humanise the corporate bitch that Netflix is through humour. So, here's me, raising a "Kids + Danger" issue, and Netflix suggests that my complaint is on a par with the deeply concerning issues of needing to pause your TV show if you fall asleep mid-episode, or if your doorbell rings whilst watching a thriller.
This was the best that Netflix could do. Did I feel valued? Well.... kinda the opposite. Did I feel listened to? The same answer. Did I feel that Netflix placed ANY KIND OF VALUE WHATSOEVER on my custom? Or that they saw themselves as having ANY KIND OF DUTY TO SAFEGUARD YOUNG KIDS? Negatory.
Netflix, clearly, sees customer 'service' as an exercise in deflection. Employees have no ability to make a difference to customers. There is no corporate ownership of customer issues. Anything that doesn't fit the established process flow charts gets knocked into the long grass.
Netflix is a 'data driven company'. They've clearly analysed every item on their P&L to death. They know that, no matter how pissed off I am at them, there is no way that I, or my middle class buddies reading this posting, will cancel our subscriptions in sufficient numbers such that it would have a a commercial impact.
No. The basic inability of Netflix to protect underage viewers from watching inappropriate content matters less to Netflix than the 1000 other things in their product development pipeline, the priorities of which would have been set by faceless 'engineers' who wouldn't understand a customer or an emotion unless it came pre-packaged by Pixar and validated by their Scrum masters.
Netflix are showing the world that customers value 'service' much less than they have ever done before. Netflix have quantified this. They know exactly what an unhappy customer costs them. And they've decided that it's cheaper to have an unhappy customer than to do the right thing.
Now, think a bit. We've already seen how customers are happy to carry on using Google despite Google funnelling advertiser dollars to terrorists. We've already seen how customers value Amazon's low prices more than they value probity and making a fair contribution to the country's tax base.
How much longer before it becomes a commercial necessity for M&S et al to cut the levels of customer service they are offering to beyond bare-bones level, just in order to compete with the nimble, data-driven internet companies.
And if the latter, how do we protect ourselves from whatever ills come our way in the future. Today, a 12 year old watches an 18 movie. Who, apart from me & my wife, really care. But tomorrow? What if a child gets seriously emotionally traumatised from Netflix content? Or Netflix is hauled into a High School massacre because a kid has decided to emulate characters in a Netflix movie. The list of WhatIfs are endless. But the end result is that Netflix just do not care.
When I began my career in Advertising, I was told that my role was always to be the Customer Champion. To speak the customers' truth in the face of a corporate culture who would often forget the customer in their pursuit of short term commercial goals.
Then, technology removed this role. Why listen to a human being sharing human stories about human customers, when surveys and business intelligence can provide rock hard data. Use imagination and intuition to 'surprise and delight' customers? That's old hat. Data monkeys can provide this insight at a fraction of the cost.
This is erroneous thinking. It's what the Bankers did in the run up to 2008. Data mining can only ever operate on that old GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) principle. It's a closed system. You'll only ever get data on the questions you survey. And your questionnaire is unlikely ever to predict a Black Swan. Or read the emotional impact of a customer who has valid reasons to be upset.
The M&S manager knew what he was doing. He made my problem go away. And here I am, the same day, lauding the guy to the rafters for a job well done. I suspect that there will be many Brits thinking 'yeah, M&S for lunch, why not?' after this posting.
But Netflix... what about them? Well, I guess I'm going to catch the eye of at least a few parents, who'll be thinking "What? My kid can watch 18 movies even though she's only 7?". Maybe one of my readers will even be a regulator or a politician, who will see an opportunity to bash the Netflix buggers and score a few easy points with the public (after all, the public understand 'Kids + Danger' way easier than they understand 'Complex tax structures such as the Double Irish'.
But whether Netflix gets knocked down a peg or two does not really matter to me. The truth of the matter is this - a company who occupy the eyeballs of my precious daughter has been shown simply not to care about her welfare. Netflix = uncaring. And uncaring = one step from abusive. Watch out Netflix, you're on your final warning in my household.
Hi! Out of nowhere the cast button on my Netflix app disappeared. Everything else is working like Disney+, YouTube, Spotify etc. I've tried everything from uninstall reinstall the Netflix app, clear cache and memory of the Netflix app, restart my phone, restart my Chromecast, factory reset my Chromecast. Both are connected to the same network and as I said up top, everything else is working fine. I'm running out of options with regards to trouble shooting. I checked my subscription plan, it hasn't changed, since I was still able to cast the show's 2 days ago, and then suddenly the cast button disappeared. Contacted Netflix customer support but I'm still waiting for a reply. Thanks in advance for any help you can throw my way
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