Netflix makes the right choice on Profiles

I was surprised a few weeks ago to receive an e-mail from Netflix advising me that they would be dropping their “Profiles” feature.  This feature allows my wife and I to each have a separate “rental queue” on a single account — with shipment of discs alternating between the queues.  To add further annoyance, the e-mail said that Netflix would provide no support for migration of existing queues and that any secondary queues would be simply deleted on September 1.

My surprise at this announcement was not so much from the removal of the feature itself, but by the ham-handed way that it was being announced and implemented.  The e-mail went so far as to state that the reason for the change was to “improve service.”  I can’t imagine how even the best spin-doctor could convince me that this was going to be an improvement.

From many companies (I’m looking at you Comcast/Qwest/Verizon/Microsoft) this type of communication would not have surprised me in the least, but Netflix has always seemed to have a better handle on the customer experience than most corporations.  My disappointment arose more from this perception that Netflix was different and perhaps valued customers more,  than from the loss of the Profiles feature itself.

I contacted Netflix to express my disappointment, and even went as far as to “sign” an online petition in protest (something I have never before done), but didn’t seriously expect anything to come of my feeble lobbying efforts.

So I was presently surprised to receive another e-mail from Netflix yesterday that stated they were reversing their decision and keeping Profiles based upon the volume of negative feedback they had received.  Well done Netflix!  Although this episode has left a tarnish on my perception of the company, it’s good to see that they were able to listen to customers and reverse an unpopular decision.