Digital Home Thoughts: Top Notch Customer Service At NetFlix

Sometime around 3am I received an email from Netflix informing me of and apologizing for a problem in their DVD shipping system. Apparently something is going on that is preventing them from emailing some users when DVDs are received and empty slots in the queue aren't being filled. I knew they should have received a DVD of mine a Tuesday or Wednesday and didn't recall seeing an email on it, but I hadn't given it much thought. Could have been misrouted in the mail or just delayed, right? Instead of waiting for customers to start wondering what is going on, Netflix has proactively contacted the affected customers notifying them of the problem and promising a credit for the days during the outage once it is over.

Now that is top notch customer service. Am I getting DVDs? No, and the timing isn't great either as the weekend looms near, but you know what? Stuff happens. I've been with Netflix since 1999 and this is the first service outage I recall having, and when they have it, they don't bury their heads in the sand and try to fix it on the cheap, keeping customers in the dark. They are very up front with the issue and will take the financial hit. I could care less about a 2-3 day refund. That won't even buy me a Tea Misto at Starbucks, but that isn't the point at all. Their annual revenue for fiscal 2007 was roughly $1.2 billion dollars, so if everyone is affected, this could be as much as $3.2 million per day they are refunding. I doubt it is that high as they have other revenue sources besides rentals, and I don't think 100% of their customer base is affected, but you get my point - this is not chump change to them.

So kudos to Netflix for doing customer service right. And get it fixed by tomorrow so I have some DVDs by Saturday. ;-)