Did a Company Actually Listen to Its Customers?

[image error]Could it actually be that a company took the time to listen to customer feedback and in the process learned something?

California-based Netflix informed the public this week that it will move away from its recently announced plan to separate its DVD service and market the brand through the Qwikster name.

Announced barely a month ago, the original plan drew the ire of countless customers who not only reacted negatively to price increases, but that the service would be split up.

Using both email and its blog to make the announcement, Netflix said that it will instead continue utilizing the "one Web site, one account and one password" through the Netflix brand with both streaming and DVD-by-mail services. The news will undoubtedly be well received by most subscribers who did not like the idea of being burdened with a pair of separate accounts. Oh, wait, many subscribers won't even know of this plan because they are now former subscribers.

The original announcements, first involving price increases, then the proposed dual accounts, led to a dropping of more than 50 percent in Netflix shares since July.

In comments from Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings, he noted that "Consumers value the simplicity Netflix has always offered and we respect that. There is a difference between moving quickly – which Netflix has done very well for years – and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case."

As for the price increase, Netflix went on to state on its blog, "While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes."

The price changes dealt a major blow to the Netflix subscriber list, with countless members dropping their accounts. In fact, Netflix was expected to have around 24 million subscribers at the end of the quarter, a loss of close to one million or so from the previous quarter.

Many of those former subscribers utilized social media in recent weeks to announce their discontent with the company, and in many cases, that they would go elsewhere for their movie rental needs.

The blog regarding keeping the services on one account was tweeted more than 2,000 times as of Monday morning (Oct. 10), showing the reach and power of social media sites such as Twitter. To show the interest in the news through social networking, the previous three Netflix blog posts regarding movie and television announcements drew less than 50 tweets combined.

Whether or not Netflix is truly done with its changes remains to be seen? One fact is in play, however, the public spoke, many of whom used social media as their communication device, and Netflix listened.

Now wouldn't that be a novel concept if more and more businesses did what the customer requested?

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