long waits on Netflix

[RoJoHen]

A beaker full of death wrote:

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I haven't bothered getting a dvd from them in months -- with all the streaming movies and tv shows they offer, who needs dvds?

I do both because there are still plenty of things that aren't offered instantly. I watch Instant stuff while I'm waiting for a new DVD.

[Hermiod]

I still think it'd be a good idea for Temis to get herself a Roku box or similar.

[John Picard]

I hate to wait about two months for The Hangover. No biggie for me, but I notice movies are flagged with waits from time to time. Right now, there is an immense interest in Jeff Bridges movies as two of the titles in my queue, which he stars, were flagged as Long Wait about two weeks ago.

[RoJoHen]

I think everybody had a long wait for The Hangover! Definitely a movie with an unexpected popularity.

[Brolan]

They have a policy of sending the newest DVDs to their "best" customers. Best meaning those that don't turn around DVDs very fast. Since I stopped watching so many DVDs and only get a couple a month, my requests come instantly.

For example I put The Hurt Locker on the top of my queue on Oscar night and got the "long wait" message. But when I sent in my DVDs (that had been sitting around three weeks) the next day I got it.

[RobertScorpio]

I have had no problems with Netflix. when its a new release, I understand that there may be high demand. So if it something we REALLY need to see, we will use Blockbuster or XBOX360 or ON DEMAND with our cable..Hangover being a recent one..


By the way, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE, which we saw at the movies yesterday, was a let down. its good, but NO WHERE in the league of HANGOVER/KNOCKED-UP

On a scale from 1-10, I give Netlfix a solid 9

Rob

[Temis the Vorta]

Like anything else it helps to be the first in line.

I'm always the first in line. I put DVDs on my saved list as soon as the titles are in Netflix's system, months before the DVD release. Oftentimes I have to keep checking back because I know about the title before Netflix has added it. (I wish Netflix had a pre-saved section, where you can type in the names of titles and be notified when Netflix adds any title that seems to be a match for it. It's annoying having to save stuff on post-its near my computer.)

I have 179 DVDs in my regular queue and 48 in the saved queue - pretty much the normal proportion - about 20% of my queue is pre-release DVDs at any given time. Only rarely do I add a DVD directly to the directly regular queue.

Yet I still have trouble getting DVDs in a timely fashion, so I don't think being "first in line" makes any difference at all. Or would the situation be even worse otherwise? Why do I have to have a friggen title in my queue for the better part of a year before I can get it?

And the streaming stuff does me no good. They only seem to stream the old stuff or new releases with lower demand like foreign films (where getting DVDs is no problem) and I have an aversion to watching anything longer than 10 minutes on my PC. I'll do it only in emergencies (missing an episode of a serialized show and needing to catch up immediately) via hulu or in a pinch, iTunes. But that's for shows I'm watching on TV, where I don't want to wait for DVD.

Generally I never notice the times, because if I'm really eager to see a popular release I just go ahead and Redbox it, or maybe even buy.

Sure, I could do that - there are really only two movies I want to see now that are waitlisted. But it's the principle of the thing. Netflix should know that big Hollywood releases with good reviews are going to have heavy demand, and they should plan for it. A week or two wait, okay, but months is just unacceptable. Why should I spend extra money to get a movie when I've already "paid" for every movie released on DVD via my Netflix subscription?

I'd rather just start a thread and bitch about it a lot. And maybe I should actually call their vaunted customer service...I'll give yall a report.

[Hermiod]

How exactly does the queueing system work ? You add discs to it and order them by priority, right ?

So, say my plan lets me have three discs at home at any time. The top two in my list are available so they send them, but the third isn't. Do they send the fourth or just not send me anything until I manually move a disc that is in stock up the list in to third place or my original third choice comes in to stock ?

[Temis the Vorta]

If there's a very long wait on certain titles, and you have other titles you also want to see that are available, then it makes sense to send you the other titles, and send the in-demand title to people who JUST want to see those in-demand movies

That's what my Netflix-hating friend says (and that's one of the reasons he hates Netflix). And if that's true, he's right to hate Netflix - they have broken system because it's penalizing people simply for having a lot of titles in their queue. The "solution" is just what he said - delete everything but those two movies.

But I don't want to delete everything. It's STUPID! STUPID STUPID STUPID!!!! Netflix should fix their broke-ass system rather than force paying customers to do STUPID things!!!

It strikes me as the most efficient way to manage the overall demand burden on their system

If it aggravates customers badly enough that they stop being customers, then it's not efficient at all. It's a broke-ass system and they need to change it.

Call them. Even if there's no glitch, the call will doubtless re-designate your prioirity to a higher level, changing the formula they're using to decide who gets what when. Squeaky wheel, and all that.

Well that's another thing. Why can't I just email them? They are an online based company, after all. Yet I've scoured their site and can find no inkling of any customer service email. I should just be able to email them and say, "fix your broke-ass system and send me X and Y DVDs right frakking now or consider me a former customer," and that should get just the same results as calling, but with less effort on my part.

Another option.. create a second account linked to that address, like you would do for a kid, and just have it send DVDs for that one.

That would be an interesting experiment, too - assuming it's under the same account and therefore no added expense.

I had a few experiences with their customer service over the years, and I'll agree that it was always good. I really don't want to have to contact them every time I've been waiting on a disc though.

And it does Netflix no good, either. Companies usually try to limit the number of times customer service is contacted because of the expense of those employees. If the system is "Customer X calls, asks for DVD Y, DVD Y is sent," then that is idiotic on Netflix's part because it is adding unneccessary expense to what should be a streamlined, dirt-cheap system. To keep expenses down, they want to keep any real-live (pricey) human being out of the process. Isn't that one reason why they're online instead of a brick-and-mortar store, to eliminate the business expense of running a store with clerks checking out DVDs for you, which in turn is why they can rent me a DVD for $1.50 and not $5 like at Blockbuster?

They could automate the process, for instance, having a "complaint" button next to a DVD that the customer can push instead of calling customer service - same result, much less cost for Netflix. Or they could optimize their system to eradicate the motive of customers to push that "complaint" button. Their customer service isn't great if they're motivating customers to complain. The best customer service is to make your customers forget you have a customer service department. That's best for the customers and for the company.

I've been assuming that this problem was related to them outgrowing their DVD supply.

I'm wondering about that, too. How long does it take to burn a DVD? They should have machines spittin' those suckers out at a rapid-fire rate, 24 hours a day. If they can't keep up, buy more machines. Maybe the hold-up is the expense of licensing the DVDs. Somebody must be expecting to be paid if you have 200,000 copies of a title rather than 2000 like you thought. But they're making much more money off 200,000 copies vs 2000 and the per-DVD licensing fee for 200,000 should be much cheaper than for 2000 - you should get a volume discount or something?!? Scaling-up is a good problem to have because you're driving your per-unit costs down.

They're (probably) going out of business, though, so Netflix must be getting flooded with new customers jumping ship before it goes down.

That sounds like the most plausible explanation so far - Netflix has been blindsided by an outside factor that while good for them long-term is causing chaos short-term. There is some lag time to purchasing new DVD-spitting-out machines and re-negotiating licensing contracts, which is disrupting what should be an efficient system. The problem should be mitigated after they've had a chance to scale up properly.

Maybe because I live near a very large city, it helped with the distribution.

I live in San Francisco, so that's not it, either.

I still think it'd be a good idea for Temis to get herself a Roku box or similar.

When they start givin' em away free, then I'll take the plunge. A major motivation for being a Netflix customer is that it's dirt-cheap. I already pay too much money overall for TV (cable bill being the chief offender ) so I'm really not up for adding one penny more.

I think everybody had a long wait for The Hangover! Definitely a movie with an unexpected popularity.

By the time it was out on DVD, it should not have been unexpected. It's exactly the type of movie that Netflix should flag as being likely to be disproportionately popular with their customer base. That's the kind of thing I find unacceptable (if that's really the problem). They really should have a good enough understanding of their customer base and their tastes that they only rarely would get blindsided.

They have a policy of sending the newest DVDs to their "best" customers. Best meaning those that don't turn around DVDs very fast. Since I stopped watching so many DVDs and only get a couple a month, my requests come instantly.

That's another possibility - I think I'm the type of person they lose money on. That infuriates me enough that I think I'll start turning DVDs around even faster so they lose even more money.

So, say my plan lets me have three discs at home at any time. The top two in my list are available so they send them, but the third isn't. Do they send the fourth or just not send me anything until I manually move a disc that is in stock up the list in to third place or my original third choice comes in to stock ?

They'll skip over what isn't available and send whatever is next in line. But if you sign up to have "two disks at home," then you have to send one back before they'll send another one. You can sign up to have one to eight DVDs at any time.

[Witterquick]

After hearing so much about this netflix, I finally signed up for it and took the better part of an hour to add stuff to my queue. I ended up really wanting to watch some movies and took 10 min to steal them from the net anyways. I guess that's it for my attempt at reforming myself.

And the streaming stuff does me no good. They only seem to stream the old stuff or new releases with lower demand like foreign films (where getting DVDs is no problem) and I have an aversion to watching anything longer than 10 minutes on my PC. I'll do it only in emergencies (missing an episode of a serialized show and needing to catch up immediately) via hulu or in a pinch, iTunes. But that's for shows I'm watching on TV, where I don't want to wait for DVD.

All it takes is a cable to link your pc to your tv. It's really not that hard like in the olden days. Their stream quality is poor though so maybe you shouldn't bother.

Why should I spend extra money to get a movie when I've already "paid" for every movie released on DVD via my Netflix subscription?

So I guess I didn't steal then. Off to watch Brazil.

[Temis the Vorta]

Netflix gives you carte blanche to steal every movie ever made. It's the least they can do for aggravating their customers.

[David cgc]

I seem to remember reading in an FAQ once that they tend to send high-demand titles to people who don't actually request high-demand titles so much. So if all you ever get are new releases, you'll get kicked to the back of the line, but if you have a lot of older stuff, you'll get bumped to the top of the list when you get the occassional high-demand disc, presumably to reward you for not hogging all the popular stuff.

Maybe it would help to bump The Hurt Locker down to number three or four and let it rise up on it's own, so it doesn't look like you're trying taking all their new stuff. It's not like it'll cost you anything practically.

[Nerys Myk]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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I'm always the first in line. I put DVDs on my saved list as soon as the titles are in Netflix's system, months before the DVD release. Oftentimes I have to keep checking back because I know about the title before Netflix has added it. (I wish Netflix had a pre-saved section, where you can type in the names of titles and be notified when Netflix adds any title that seems to be a match for it. It's annoying having to save stuff on post-its near my computer.)

I have 179 DVDs in my regular queue and 48 in the saved queue - pretty much the normal proportion - about 20% of my queue is pre-release DVDs at any given time. Only rarely do I add a DVD directly to the directly regular queue.

Yet I still have trouble getting DVDs in a timely fashion, so I don't think being "first in line" makes any difference at all. Or would the situation be even worse otherwise? Why do I have to have a friggen title in my queue for the better part of a year before I can get it?

From what I can tell all putting it in your que is just "buying the ticket" it doesnt give you a prime spot in "the line to get in". I've add movies on the spur of the moment and gotten them on the day of release.

I also have a long list of movies in the Saved DVD section of my Netflix que. Stuff that hasn't even hit the theaters yet. Once a release date is known it appears next to the title and it's transfered to the DVD list. My saved list is longer than my DVD list.

[Temis the Vorta]

I'm rather obsessive about Netflix and check it daily. If I see something has bumped from my saved to regular queue, I bump it to the top of the list (especially if it's something I want to see quickly or I suspect is going to be wait-listed.)

Should I check the frakking thing more frequently than daily!?! I already think I'm overdoing it.

Nah, I think it's because I'm being punished for returning DVDs quickly. Netflix is losing money on me and are trying to drive me away as a result. Bastards, it won't work! I'll single handedly drive Netflix out of business with my rapid-fire rate of return!!!

I seem to remember reading in an FAQ once that they tend to send high-demand titles to people who don't actually request high-demand titles so much.

But don't most customers of any DVD service rent mainly the big blockbuster releases? I think I'm pretty unusual in that I rent other things as well. Here's the top ten from my saved queue as a sample of my tastes: Farscape S1, Sherlock Holmes, The Road, Invictus, Curb Your Enthusiasm S7, Entourage S6, Prodigal Sons, A Prophet, A Single Man, Ajami. That's two "big" Hollywood movies and the rest are smaller Hollywood movies, TV shows, and foreign films. My regular queue has a lot of old movies as well (which are almost all out on DVD and wouldn't appear in the saved list.)

And that policy makes no sense. Once they've accurately forecast the demand for any given title, they should be able to stock the correct number of DVDs. Forecasting people's DVD-renting tastes can't be that difficult. If people want a lot of high-demand movies, then stock more high-demand movies.

[David cgc]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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But don't most customers of any DVD service rent mainly the big blockbuster releases?

Speaking only for myself, if I only (or even mostly) wanted popular, recent movies, I'd never have stopped using Blockbuster. Nowadays, I'd probably be getting DVDs from Redbox or one of the other kiosk chains. I have a Netflix precisely because they have more than the top movies of the last five years. Or, to put it another way.

John Gruber wrote:

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Blockbuster CEO ‘Confused by This Fascination That Everybody Has With Netflix’

How does Jim Keyes still have the job as CEO? Netflix is kicking his company’s ass and he thinks Netflix is the company that’s doing it wrong:

Given the fact that Netflix is popular at all, I'd say we two aren't as unusual for their customers as you'd think.