December 29, 2007
Blockbuster's Misguided Email
Back in August, the Liloia family was unceremoniously dumped into a lower-featured Blockbuster plan because we were among the company's most loyal customers. Sure, we could have stayed on our existing plan... for $10 per month more -- a 66% price jump.
Though Netflix and I are still not on great terms (from the throttling-back of our account service years ago during which they were sued by angry customers) we returned to them and even upped our plan. For thirty dollars a month, we have been merrily renting five movies at a time. (We don't have television.) The plan is divided so Trevor has his own queue and one movie out at a time -- which leaves Dave and I with four movies at once. We haven't set foot in a Blockbuster store since.
Every once in a while we hit a day where we have no movies at home, but it's infrequent and we use the Instant Watching feature with a laptop connected to the television for a quick fix. The selection is fair; it's good for catching up on classics you've missed.
Netflix sent us nineteen movies in November and eighteen movies in October. We're on track for a December total of about eighteen. That's around $1.60 per movie -- still cheaper and more convenient than in-store Blockbuster rentals, but nowhere near the 75-cent a movie rate we were seeing before. So I'm open to better offers.
Today, Blockbuster sent me a message:
It's been a while. We miss you. That's why we'd like to offer you BLOCKBUSTER By Mail for only $3.99 a month.
Tip: The way to win back your disgruntled former customers is not to send them insulting, nerfed offers. Blockbuster has reinitiated contact with me -- who quit the service annoyed just a handful of months ago -- to offer a plan of one DVD at a time, maximum of two rentals per month, with no in-store exchanges for $3.99 a month. How does my previous rental history of 24 movies monthly lead them to believe this is the plan I want?
The funny thing is, their new Total Access Premium plan at $34.99 would net us 24 movies a month for $1.45. Even though it's a $17 price hike (a doubling of the price!) over our original Total Access fee, it's still more cost-effective than Netflix. (But only if we drive an hour into St. Albans every weekend, so perhaps with gas money, it isn't cheapest.) At this point, I'm so soured on Blockbuster that I'm no longer interested in what the company has to offer.
And Blockbuster really doesn't want us back. They want some other family who pays for the $17.99 plan and watches two movies a month. That's not us.
For the record, we did buy Boggle. And Life, and Stratego, and Loot. Winter. Vermont. Brrr.
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