The phenomenon of Netflix came from nowhere and some professional commentators say it was almost responsible,with other streaming networks, for putting the entire cinema industry out of business!
Years of apparent success followed huge spend on irresistible advertising and aggressive promotion, together with bulk (and consequently no doubt costly) purchase of content, secured spectacular customer acquisition, making the streaming giant appear invincible at one time.
Much was made by corporate experts at the time about the level of debt the business may have had to assume in its early days to fund this rapid emergence.
Bur its ambition was immense and rightly rewarded, albeit the possible pitfalls of over ambition are described in our post entitled "Be Ambitious but be Smart with it to StressBust™ effectively".
And then the world all of a sudden changed for Netflix and other streamers - "Learn to Expect (and Accept) the Unexpected to Stressbust™ More Effectively" - in a number of ways including the following:-
● there was a resurgence of cinema going and getting out of the house generally off the back of covid related restrictions - see our StressBusting™ posts entitled ""Get Away from it All" to Stressbust™ For a Bit", "There is nothing at all wrong with a "Busman's Holiday" - and it is sure better than no holiday at all!" & "Keep an eye out for nearby Stressbusting™ Activities" by way of illustration
● a vast array of equally ambitious competitors entered the same market
● there appeared to became a marked shortage of quality material to go around all the streaming platforms.
Possibly because production of new material was suspended during covid restrictions, Netflix seemed to make far more existing foreign content available to all jurisdictional users with subtitles, but without sufficiently signposting which content fell into this class until you started streaming the content itself.
Netflix was arguably for the first time in its (relatively very short) history, on a back foot.
And some not quite so customer centric things started happening, including:-
● fees went up
● Netflix became known to many and advertised itself as a content maker in its own right as opposed to a pure streaming platform
● it arguably started to become perceived by some as offering volume content over quality
● (most latterly) it is clamping down on password sharing in different households, a major perceived USP of the platform over others.
One or a combination of these back to back changes left many customers "fizzworthy" - a form of frustration and disappointment described in our posts entitled ""Fizzworthy" - a new entrant to our StressBusting™ vocabulary" and "Extend your Vocabulary to Stressbust™" respectively.
Added to this, there appeared to be an increased prevalence of stream switch offers, potentially making it far easier and cheaper to move over to other providers.
We have spoken to a lot of people who feel rather let down, if not even taken in, by Netflix, given recent changes.
There is almost a sense that Netflix may have grown too fast for its own good, promised the world in the process and now expects its customers to clawback any overspend for it as market conditions have shifted.
But Netflix is a private company, not a state entity, which therefore cannot arguably and realistically expect people to account for past benefits received as though they were some form of "grant" at the time.
They conversely elected to create the market expectation and norm for their product with related pricing; their funding decisions and arrangements, historic and beyond, are a matter for them and them only.
And streaming customers are no fools - they are conversely some of the tech savvy of all customers out there, more than au fait with the market alternatives available - see "Embrace Technology to Stressbust™".
A further simple observation we have made as customers - see our post entitled "Learn to "Observe" as opposed to merely "See" to Stressbust™ efficiently"" - is that the icon for exiting the streamer on a TV monitor moved suddenly to the bottom right hand side of the screen, making it more time consuming to exit the application for the purpose of, for example, accessing an alternative streaming provider
This may have resulted from technological incompetence on our part, but if not, it is like "closing the barn door after your horse has already bolted"; customer retention is about making your product or services so indispensible that a customer never wants to lose it, not about making it more physically difficult to leave once that decision has already been made.
And while nobody could have predicted covid, other potential market changes affecting the sector might have been anticipated by a business so heavily resourced - our post entitled ""Due Diligence" : what is it and why is it so important?" covers the importance of seeing around corners as a business and the tools available out there to do so.
And if nothing else, perhaps Netflix, like other corporate giants, might recognise that""Sorry (needn't!) be the Hardest Word"", and that by communicating openly with users the reasons for highly material changes in the offering by which they are directly affected, it may help retain the loyal customer base it worked so hard and did so well to secure in the first place.
Because, put plainly, a streaming subscription is not an essential outgoing in an economic climate in which the majority are looking or having to reduce spend.
We will therefore watch the next phase in online streaming with interest.
For a further post relevant to the need to listen to customers generally, see our post entitled "The Universe gave us 2 ears and only 1 mouth for a reason".
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