

Netflix's Fascinating Cancellation Questionnaire - dell9000
http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2011/06/12/netflix-cancellation/

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peteretep
It's interesting what you can do with a questionnaire...

Back in the day (a few years ago) I worked as a full-time dating coach. As you
can imagine, there was always a credibility gap for potential clients, and one
way we'd try and mitigate that was to offer (and to absolutely honour) a
complete money-back guarantee - if you didn't get $3,000 worth of value out of
your weekend, you could have your money back, just by asking for it.

As a coach, with the way the business model set up, even one customer asking
for their money back was a financial disaster - there were lots of sunk costs
in terms of accommodation and flights.

Anyway, through sensible use of a questionnaire, I got my personal refund rate
down to literally 0. None of my 600 students (over the timeframe I ran
workshops) asked for their money back, and I attribute it to the questionnaire
(and our being awesome dating coaches ;-))

The workshops were split in to 5 hours of seminar on each of Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday, and 4 hours "in the field" on Friday and Saturday nights. We had
to maintain a 3:1 student to instructor ratio, and could sell up to 12 places
on the weekend. As a Lead Coach, I was responsible for all of it (and had laid
out the cash from my pocket for all of it, too).

On both Saturday and Sunday morning, I'd give the students a questionnaire,
although Saturday was by far the more important of the two. I'd start by
asking them general questions, phrased to get them thinking about the
positives:

* What's been your favourite aspect so far? * What's been your key learning point so far? * How many girls did you talk to last night? * Describe the best interaction you had last night... * What are you going to try and do differently tonight? (on the Saturday)

As Tony Robbins says, the quality of your life is determined by the questions
you ask yourself. Students will typically have had a LOT of great experiences,
but also a few blow-outs, and a few low points in the evening. What I wanted
to do was to focus them on the best aspects of what they'd learned.

Our big worry was always that we'd get someone who'd come along, enjoy the
program, and then ask for their money back right at the end because they were
cheap. Now technically they weren't allowed to do this - the money-back
guarantee stipulated that they had to tell us and give us time to fix anything
they weren't enjoying.

So to me, the crucial questions were then:

* Which coach did you work with? * Would you be happy to work with them again tonight? (on the Saturday)

Now the coaches were great guys, and what's more, would all go the extra mile
for students. Students would run, hide, tell coaches they didn't want to do it
anymore, etc, but the coaches would stick with the guys and MAKE them talk to
girls. And the students LOVED them for it. By capturing the student's
enthusiasm for the coaches in writing, I got two things:

Firstly there was an implicit agreement that they were having a good time. And
that was good, as long as the student /was/ having a good time. But also it
gave us time to spot any problems WELL in advance. Every workshop, one guy out
of 12 would have had a not-great time on the first night. Some students and
instructors just did not get along, some guys had some really deep-set
problems, and needed one-on-one love-bombing.

Without the questionnaires (and at first, I was the only Lead Coach using
them), these were the guys who asked for refunds. By getting them to answer
questionnaires early in to the process, we were able to identify them and take
corrective action...

Anyway! That's quite a wall of text, so:

tl;dr: you can use questionnaires to change the way people think about things,
and also to catch problems well before they happen...

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mcherm
Netflix's number one problem is that the companies who own the content don't
(for the most part) want them to succeed. They take too much power away from
the content owners. Netflix would happily offer EVERYTHING via streaming. The
content owners would rather Netflix weren't allowed to send disks out by mail,
but there's that pesky problem that it doesn't violate copyright law.

Maybe Congress will create compulsory licensing for streaming like the
compulsory licensing that makes radio possible. Or maybe they will allow
content owners to license DVDs instead of selling them and Netflix will cease
to exist.

I have dealt with cable companies and I have dealt with Netflix, and I know
which side I am on.

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ben1040
It's refreshing to see that Netflix acknowledges their shortcomings (picture
quality, streaming catalog, etc) and recognizes these might be reasons people
would quit. And that they recognize that some people may be quitting to go to
Hulu -- which they even point out right on the survey that it's cheaper -- or
to Pirate Bay.

It's like a 12-step program: to solve problems in your service and compete,
the first step is to admit you have problems and high competition.

Then you can figure out which ones are driving people away and to where, and
target all your work to that.

~~~
hugh3
The most interesting bit is the way they even go and tell you __in bold
__exactly how much all of the competing options cost.

My reaction: "Wait, I can get free TV episodes and free shipping with Amazon
Prime for $79 a year?"

Not that I'd give up Netflix, mind you. Though I have recently downscaled from
three to two discs at a time since I figured out I was watching far more
streaming stuff than disc-borne stuff.

~~~
rsingel
I'm already a Prime customer -- and a Netflix subscriber. Amazon's "free"
category for Prime movies is thin - very thin.

And I'm afraid Netflix warped my brain with subscription fee -- it seems
exorbitant now to pay $3.00 to watch a single streaming movie. So personally,
I don't find the promise of a few free shows, designed to lure me into paying
a la carte for the premium ones, very compelling.

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lhnz
Am I the only person that thinks that's a pretty complicated looking
questionnaire to give a user when leaving your service, or does Netflix have
unusually intelligent/savvy customers?

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philfreo
It looks like this is shown after the account is currently canceled, and is
completely optional. It doesn't look complicated, it just looks a little time
consuming because they want the details. I think they did a good job.

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mirkules
One option that I noticed is missing-and because of which I considred
cancelling my netflix account- is that streaming is not available on your
account if you travel outside the country. Even though I know how to get
around it, why do I need to feel like I'm doing something illegal to access
something I paid for?

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paul9290
For $8 bucks a month I find it to be a great value, even if I only watch 5 to
7 things a month. To use OnDemand I would need Cable TV and have to pay $50 to
$60 more.

~~~
rmb177
I found the author's criticism of the Netflix Instant catalog surprising. I
would be set for weeks if I watched my instant queue straight through.
Granted, I'm not overly discerning when throwing something in there, but Roger
Ebert recommends Netflix instant movies on his Twitter feed faster than I can
watch them.

~~~
paul9290
Maybe it's where the OP is in his life ...looks like he has a family. I think
that would be an interesting survey/study. How many Netflix subscribers have
no cable and are single vs. how many have no cable and are a family unit?

I can imagine many wives not wanting to get rid of cable TV and just have
Netflix. Maybe this was another factor why the OP canceled it or maybe he was
just wanting to write an interesting blog piece and resigned up.

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shmageggy
Blizzard has a similarly comprehensive questionnaire for canceling a World of
Warcraft account.

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yespauls
Netflix instant selection is too limiting. Also, I wish it were better
organized. But all in all a great product. I am seriously considering
canceling my cable and replacing it with Hulu or Netflix. Charter wouldn't
have a questionnaire like this that's for sure.

