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Netflix Makes It Easy To Reach a Human
msblack writes "In a move that goes against the prevailing trends of outsourcing and non-interactive customer support, Netflix has forsaken e-mail as a means of resolving customer problems. According to the NYTimes article, Netflix set up a call center in Portland OR, shunning other popular US call center cities (because Portland natives were perceived to sound friendlier) or off-shoring. 'It's very interesting and counter to everything anybody else is doing,' said Tom Adams, a market researcher in Carmel, California. 'Everyone else is making it almost impossible to find a human.'"
AMAZING! In all likelihood, English was their first language too! I think I'm going to break-down and cry from all this excitement.
The game.
Atleast with a call center in portland, the deception doesn't start when the rep says "My name is George"
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
While it's great to be able to reach a human, sometimes you have a simple question, or a complicated one with a simple solution, such that email is a lot more time efficient. I've had a problem with Sprint billing and their customer service part of the site doesn't give an email, so I have to call in and be put on hold for 30 minutes, authenticate myself, and get shuffled around through several departments, just to be able to communicate the existence of a problem. On the other hand, with Vanguard (investments) you can both call and email, and this has saved me a lot of time, for example, when I have a question that doesn't need to be answered immediately. I just send it, and pick up the answer at my convenience. (Thought it's not "email" per se, but a messaging form after you log in.)
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Good enough for me - I just signed up. People always complain that everybody is outsourcing and service is bad and all. Well, here is your chance to put your money where your mouth is. I know I just did.
Peter.
It's nice that there's a call option that's home-grown, and there isn't a push for using the web/email for customer service, and all... but, did they have to cut e-mail out of the loop altogether?
DVDs by mail isn't such a big hairy deal that I need to jump on the phone and hold for who knows how long to express that I never got a disc that was sent when I can just shoot off an email saying "It's been a week, the disc you sent never got here, could you try again?" and forget about it.
(Partial disclosure: I am not a Netflix subscriber, but of another DVD-by-mail rental company (Full disclosure: Greencine) and never had any problems using e-mail only, although I think they've got an 1-800 number, too.)
More Twoson than Cupertino
Wow, it seems like businesses are starting to care about how they treat their customers.
I mean really, what kind of short sighted business pisses off every customer that needs support by sending them through a never ending series of menus or worse, to a script reading call center in India.
But a few months ago, I decided to get back into it. At the time, I decided to try out both Blockbuster and Netflix at the same time, just to see how they stacked up. In the end, there was no comparison. Blockbuster's only advantage was their store exchange feature (where you can return your rental in a store and pick out a new DVD from the store). But it was completely outweighed by the terrible quality of every other aspect of their service.
Blockbuster was SLOW. Netflix, for me has a two day turnaround--I drop a DVD in the mail and 2 days later a new one. Blockbuster's turnaround was several days at best, much longer at worst.
Blockbuster's queue system is weak. It's nowhere nearly as sophisticated as Netflix's. Moving things around in Blockbuster's queue is a pain and it lacks features like getting a summary of the movie just by hovering your cursor over it and dragging-and-dropping movies to change their order.
Blockbuster's selection is a JOKE compared to Netflix. This is especially important to me as an indie film fan.
Blockbuster throttled me almost from day one. Movies would sit at the top of my queue with "Available" status, yet they would ship out a movie that was 6th on my list, and it would take them several days to do even THAT.
To me, this news of better customer service is just another way that Netflix shows that they've really got their stuff together. Blockbuster may have the store model down, but their online store leaves MUCH to be desired.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
What the f**k?!?! Are they tryin' to say people in New Jersey aren't f**kin' friendly enough?!?!? Freakin' lunatics... them and their weepy northwestern friends. Jersey doesn't need you or your stinkin' movies...
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
...I'm perfectly happy to send an email to "support@whatever_company.com", as long as I am answered by a person who sticks around until my issue is resolved.
Disclaimer: I am a CRM developer.
I recently found out about this when I wanted to ask a simple straightforward question, and was forced to wait >20 minutes on hold.
You know, I really don't care if I reach a voice, I just want my questions answered. There are situations where I prefer a computer answering, Airborne package pickup comes to mind. As for customer service I am happier to have a live chat with the rep as anything. I get a person (albeit they are multitasking) fairly quickly and there are no misunderstandings as the text is right in front of you. When I am done I get a transcript to file away in case I want to look at it again. Talking on the phone just takes way to long most of the time and I dont feel like I get as good of expertise on the first try as I do chat anyway.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
What about those of us that want to use email?
I hate calling call centres and finding staff who are not empowered to fix anything. Being held in queues, being promised call backs that never happen. I mean, if I want to report a cracked DVD, it's just as easy to say in an email "you sent me this DVD it has a crack, please replace it" as it is on the phone.
If I use email I have a written record of what I said to them and what they said to me. All I ask is that I get a timely and helpful reply. That means not sending a canned response based on the first sentence of my email, rather than reading the whole thing. That means a response in English, not a jumble of English like words that you need to read several times to understand what the sender might mean.
I'm all for companies having call centres. I'm all for them having an easy way to reach a humnan. However, just replacing all the problems with email communications with human staff that can do more than read off a script won't improve customer satisfaction.
One important point which is ignored in TFA is that the use of simple to-the-point web forms for common issues (such as lost/damaged discs, excessive delays, or incorrect mailings) means that the typical user never has to call or email in the first place. Unlike a lot of other websites, these forms actually don't suck, either. In case you're a user and haven't found them yet, they're all accessible off of your account page.
Also, Netflix users frequently receive emails which are "checking up" on movie arrival times in order to provide an accurate estimate of when shipped discs will arrive. Having changed addresses twice with our family account, my wife and I have been very grateful for this "getting things right" mentality.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
They're not doing themselves any favours if the call centre has a huge wait time. At least with e-mail you can send the e-mail and wait for a response, as opposed to sitting there with the phone playing bad hold music on speakerphone or while you hold it in your hand. Though it's nice that they are using (relatively) local reps who no doubt speak English... it's not very helpful if you can't get to one in a reasonable amount of time.
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Oddly, I would normally agree but recently I need support on my Dell XPS system (it's about a year old) after some water damage. I was reluctant to call Dell (as I've had some horrific experiences last time with my laptop) so I tried their online chat while looking up other contact information. the online chat was over 11min wait.
I found the XPS phone number and called it and I got through to a Tech. in less than 30 seconds. He also was clearly American and no distinguishable American accent (at least not to a Midwesterner). Needless to say, It was probably one of the easiest and fastest Tech. support calls I've had. Which is in stark contract to my laptop support I received years ago. I guess the XPS price tag does come with some perks other than a pretty fast computer.
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
I recently had to call NYPD to find out something about a ticket. So I dialed the local precint... To my amusement (not kidding):
Thank you for calling yadda yadda...
For homicide press 1
For a detective press 2
For donut squad press 3
Alright, so I made up donut squad... But it was funny yet a little scary to think that automation is going a little too far sometimes. I tried to call my mother recently and got the same thing:
Thank you for calling your mother...
If you need money press 1
If you need your laundry done, press 2
If its mother's day, press 3
Infiltrated dot Net
... the last thing you want to do is listen to someone who you can barely understand and is totally unwilling to genuinely help you.
Customer retention is a huge part of business and many companies are failing it. By retention I don't mean special offers which are offered because the service is cheaper elsewhere and the company can offer a discount, but by keeping the customers who are having problems happy you'll retain them for longer. I've been having problems with some other company who shall remain nameless, am I likely to stay with their service? No chance.
Perhaps if more companies considered their reputation and their ability to retain customers, they'd consider things a bit more carefully before outsourcing their support.
More often than Netflix might like these days, people call to cancel their subscriptions. One reason for emphasizing direct phone contact over e-mail messages is that on the phone, a Netflix employee has a fighting chance of persuading the customer to stay. I've made a few calls to different companies (credit cards, cable) looking to change my plan, just to cancel it after suffering through the maze of voice mail. Talking to a real human that is instructed to "err on the side of generosity" will keep my business every time. Props Netflix.
And that, my friends, is probably the best 'customer support' of all.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
As long as you don't mention you're a Californian!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
It only seems logical for a digital company like that to continue their cost-cutting efforts. Customer Service FTW!
I don't know if I'd rather deal with a non-native English speaker or the fully-baked minimum wage workers you find Portland. . .
What?
Here are 4 crazy things that companies do with their phone systems. I have experienced them all. whenever any of these happen to me I try hard to avoid ever doing business with them again.
1) Those voice menu things, especially if they have no paths to speak to a human, or make you key in some arcane reference number to speak to a human. Score bonus points if the human asks for it again even though you just know they've already got your records on their screen.
2) Getting some message that tells you the wait will be long as they are experiencing abnormal call volume yet that happens any/every time you call, even at 3am. Score bonus points for providing automated wait time estimates that are wildly inaccurate.
3) Hiring phone operators that can hardly speak English, or have a very heavy accent. Score bonus points if they are overseas themselves or have had their common sense surgically removed.
4) Assume its OK to keep customers waiting on hold for 20 minutes just to talk to someone. Score bonus points if the person you finally speak to just redirects you to another 20 minute wait to speak to someone else. Score mega points if any person you speak to redirects you back to an earlier person you have already been redirected by.
Why are you comparing Sprint to Netflix? It is as if you have just tied the two companies and their corporate culture together and turned Netflix into Sprint as far as customer satisfaction when being on the phone. I suggest you actually subscribe to Netflix and you will see that you probably never need the call center to being with. My wife and I enjoy Netflix and it is a trouble free service, unlike Sprint which is trouble from the time you say "I do"
I've been with netflix for about 4 years now, and I've only needed to call them twice. I spent about 5 minutes on the phone today with a customer service rep, and my problem was resolved. This is why I continue to give them my business. More important than the convenience or the price, I like dealing with real people.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
For some of the deaf it is more comfortable to use e-mail or chat rooms for inquiries. I hope they use both phone and e-mail support and just let their customers choose which to use.
(Have they really forsaken all e-mail communication for customer service? Two hundred representatives sounds a little low.)
I have a better idea for Netflix. Partner with TiVo to deliver movies over the wire. I don't know what happened to that deal, but they should find a way to work it out. TiVo is now aligned with Amazon. The Amazon service pretty much sucks from the (lack of) search options (try finding a movie to rent and then clicking on an actor's name in the credits list) to the lousy selection.
I would go back to Netflix (previous subscriber, and was pretty happy) if they would do that, instead of this half-assed deal where you can watch the movies on your Windows (only) PC. It really is too bad, because Netflix has a great selection, a well thought out web interface, and decent customer service.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
I hate to break it to you, but I Live not far south of Portland, and went to highschool here, in my highschool, nearly 85% of my class were ESL at some point int the last 6 years of their schooling
I still don't buy the 'throttling' rumors. When it was a big deal, I looked all over for some indication that Netflix was throttling delivery. I never found any. People would point to the Netflix terms of use as 'proof' that they admit to 'throttling'. There was never anything I found in their TOS that said they throttled. When people would explain what was happening to them, it always turned out that they just didn't get the movie that was a new release and at the top of their list.
I know that Netflix has rarely taken more than 1 day to receive my movies, and 1 day to get me a new one. This has been the case the entire time I have had Netflix, and I watch a LOT of movies. In fact, I usually go through about 30 movies a month on my three movie plan.
I think that part of the problem is that people get confused about what 'throttling' is. I know that Gamefly throttles. Throttling would be holding back deliveries. If Netflix sends you the second or third movie on your list because they don't have enough of the new release, and they give first priority to those that rent less, that is NOT throttling. In fact, doing the opposite would be throttling. If Young Sebastian only has one item on his list, and Ms. Black has 50, and there is only one copy of "Blades of Glory" left to send out. Sending it to Ms. Black would mean that Young Sebastian would be 'throttled', where as sending it to Ms. Black would mean that both people get a movie.
I support the decision to have a human call center. Until AIs are better, this is a necessary resource for people whose questions do not fit into categorizable types.
For those questions that do, a well-written FAQ placed prominently on the website can make a big difference, especially if the company is smart enough to embed helpful forms within it (a question "How do I contact you?" should link to a form or ideally, have the form embedded within it).
A good FAQ saves massive amounts of time over talking to a human being if the question is both one that is frequently asked, and one for which the general answer does not change. Answer the archetypal question with an archetypal response, and direct the exceptions to the call center.
Good work, Netflix. It almost makes me regret the lack of motivation I have toward seeing anything filmed in the last forty years.
technical writing / development
That's a very customer-friendly thing for Netflix to do. If I was the type of person who rents movies, I'd probably give them my business.
No, I don't illegally download all my movies in lieu of renting, I use the public library. It's a hard thing to admit because it makes me sound like a cheap loser (cheap because I don't pay anything, and loser because it "cooler" to be a pirate), but my library has all the latest DVDs shortly after they're released. They also have A LOT of old, independent and foreign movies to choose from. There are plenty of movies I've gotten this way that I would have otherwise never known existed: Everything is Illuminated, Dancer in the Dark, and Monsoon Wedding for example. You won't see ads for films like these when you're watching My Name is Earl or a baseball game on TV.
Disclaimer: no, I don't work for the library. I'm just impressed with how my tax dollars are spent for a change.
I've had Netflix for years now and I've never had a reason to contact their customer service. Most of the stuff you would need to contact customer service for (missing disk, damaged disk, etc...) is handled conveniently on their website.
This sort of thing is the reason I have Netflix in the first place. I was tired of getting jerked around by traditional video rental companies.
I read the internet for the articles.
hold until a customer representative is available to take your call...
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
For me, this kills Netflix. I'd been thinking about it, but I hate talking to people on the phone. I prefer email for many customer service tasks.
I would love the idea of making calling a service rep a viable option. I would not work with a company that wouldn't accept email.
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After being subjected to the abuse of SBC's customer service for a few years, I'd pay double for netflix after reading that artical.
Here an example of why netflix is doing the right thing. I came home one day to find that my telephone line has no dial tone and called the wonderous SBC customer service line only to get an enchanting computerized voice.
COMPUTER: If you do not have a dail-tone, press 1. If you......
ME: *PRESS 1*
COMPUTER: Are you calling from the line that is having this problem?
ME: Ummmmm......
It gets worse if you have a problem with your DSL connection because then they put you through to their call center in india where some guy reads a list of questions and doesn't listen to what you are telling him for an hour.
I'm looking at moving in above a Starbucks, and signing up for t-mobile hotspot just so I can get internet access without having to deal with SBC/AT&T.
I say, netflix is spot on. I just signed up.
This seems just one more reason to switch to Netflix. I'm currently with Blockbuster Online, only because I can return titles for in-store rentals as you say. I've almost completely exhausted their in-store selection (except the new season of Rome just released, damn you HBO) and I'll be switching to Netflix soon. Just to feel less dirty really. I hate Blockbuster. I'm still bitter about the years of late-fee rape and randomly charging my card (sometimes the full purchase price for movies I actually did return!) and it's quite gratifying to watch them scramble to save their business. I've been running through HBO's awesome library of shows building a collection and actually, Blockbuster has had great turn around for me most of the time. I think it's because I live near their distribution center. At least initially they did. Now my queue is almost all "long waits" and I think this will be my last month.
Anyway I read somewhere that the reason some titles remain "available" but don't get shipped to you is b/c they are at distribution centers far removed from you. If they are on the other side of the country and don't get shipped to any intermediate places they'll essentially never reach you. If that's the case they'd do well to include region in their criteria for availability and I don't know how Netflix does it, but I can't imagine you make customers happy by teasing them like that. Here's to Blockbuster's slow fiery death!
.....use a recording device.
It's a lot easier to lie if proof is not left behind.
I have been a Netflix subscriber for a long time, and only recently did I have to call their customer service for the first time. I received the usual email notification that a movie shipped, and that I should receive it the next day. The next day the movie never came, but I did receive another email for the same movie saying that it had been received by Netflix, never having been at my house. Being a new release, and fearing that it would be a while before it might show up again, I called their customer service, and the person I talked to was very friendly, and fixed the issue right away. She put another copy of that movie in the mail to me that very day, in addition to the 3 movies I already had out. (The next movie in my queue had already shipped when they received the other one) and I was not charged for the extra movie. I was very pleased with their attention to the situation, as they could easily have said 'Just put it in your queue again.'
And they said zombies weren't real!
Check out LiveOps, run by Ebay's Maynard Webb. They have U.S. based work at home agents and a system that routes to the best available, and most friendly agent. "Most friendly" sounds like a joke, but it's easy. With 16,000 agents across the country they can match callers based on ANI to like agents. So Boston callers talk to Boston agents, Texas callers talk to Texas agents, etc, etc. Local accent matters.
Here's a quote from this week's Business Week:
Its highly automated system routes calls to some 16,000 home agents--independent contractors, not employees--based on how well they've answered similar calls earlier. Lisa Hammond, a Wichita mother of three, says she's pocketing more money, after factoring in gas and child-care costs, working at home for LiveOps on her own time 15 to 18 hours a week than she did working more than full-time as a Wal-Mart (WMT ) store supervisor. Compared with a conventional call center, says LiveOps CEO Maynard Webb, "this is a more virtual, self-managed ecosystem." http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_3
I'm having a customer related problem of geek kind with them. Their SPF records are shot to hell and Blockbuster online emails aren't coming from "authorized" email address therefore my spam filter ends up rejecting them.
The irony a technology company going low tech to serve their customers, while my local bank sends my phone calls overseas.
Yeah, I think that warrants giving NetFlix my business.
Hope is the currency of fools
I'm completely surprised that you, as an independent movie fan, were disappointed in BLOCKBUSTER'S selection of movies. You'd think that a company like BLOCKBUSTER would carry tons of indie flicks... right?
Dude, the name of the company is "Blockbuster". What did you think you were going to get... the Criterion Collection guaranteed always in stock?
Are you disappointed or surprised when you go into Wal-Mart, and they don't have the kind of Gruyère that you're accustomed to?
I don't respond to AC's.
How dare you use reason and how dare you know what you're talking about? You're undermining all those 5+ Insightful posts complaining about how they just want to e-mail.
I've had nothing but good experiences with Netflix phone support. I even had someone follow up with an issue by calling me back when it was resolved to make sure I was content. However, during certain times, the hold time is massive. I've regularly had to wait on hold listening to their elevator music for about 20 to 40 minutes. I've called them a lot during the past month due to DVDs being sent to me that were not in wide screen.
I personally switched banks after three calls in a row were answered by someone whose English was unintelligible. I didn't think it was unreasonable to expect that the people a company puts on the phone to talk to English-speaking customers actually be able to speak and understand English.
In the end, putting customers first can work as a business strategy, but only when customers aren't focused on the "lowest-price-at-any-cost" model. And at some point, people start realizing that it isn't worth it to buy that Made in China car when you'll have to have it towed to the junkyard in 90 days.
When I was working my way through college, my manager had a saying: The bad aftertaste of poor quality will linger long after the sweetness of the low price is forgotten.
It's funny how everyone wants to have it both ways: a car priced like a Hundai with treatment at the dealership like you bought a Lexus. Let's face it--companies make rational decisions. When everything is telling them that the low price is all that matters, that's all they focus on. Good support (heck, any support) costs money, and customers generally aren't willing to pay more for it, so why increase the price of your product to cover good support? Just do what's cheapest so you can sell more gizmos at the lowest possible price.
I applaud Netflix for this move. I hope more customers come the the realization that price isn't the only thing that matters so that more companies will make choices like this.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Thank you!!!
Yeah, people are simplistic in the way that they think about these things. The complaints seem to come mostly from people who go through a whole pile of new releases. New releases are a problem for any rental place, since there is a big surge in demand for the first few weeks, but you can't make enough profit to justify purchasing a huge supply of DVDs to meet that demand.
Netflix gives priority on these in-demand DVDs to the people who rent the least, as you say. Some people think this means that they have some system to "slow down" people who rent too much, but my experience is that you can go through a large number of DVDs as long as you aren't fixated on new releases. But "new release prioritization" doesn't make a sexy complainer campaign slogan the way "throttling" does.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I've experienced their throttling myself. They would sometimes take 5-7 days to receive a movie and for them to send out a new one, even though I know their distribution center is just down the road. They wouldn't note it as "received" until I reported it as "missing." Then magically it would appear as received within 12 hours. And I was never a very heavy renter. However, I've cut back on my turn-around, and during that same time their service for me has been great.
You don't have to "buy" the throttling rumors. Netflix admitted to them. They changed their TOS because of a lawsuit over throttling. They sent out letters stating "In determining priority for shipping and inventory allocation, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service." If you rent more, they take their time sending you new movies. Sure there's also the problem of supply and demand, but they went beyond that to withholding rentals.
I love Netflix, and I understand their business decision. But don't wear blinders just because you haven't been affected.
*clap clap clap*
All corporations in the US should follow this example...Netflixs has earned a lot of karma for this!
I love Netflix, I have been a continuous member so long that in-fact my rate is still $13.99 and I get 4 DVDs out at once.
I digress, when Netflix first began (or more accurately when I first joined), there was no throttling. When their subscriber base went up they did start "holding back DVDs" for very high rate customers. Basically anyone exceeding 2x the number of DVDs in the plan per month fell into this category. So if you had a 4-out plan, then when you were on your 9th DVD in a 30 day period, the 9th, 10th, and 11th DVDs would take quite sometime to get to you (it would not ship, it would show as available). Now realize I have a national talk radio show so I wouldn't put my name on the line if I wasn't sure. My mother also has a Netflix account and I ordered the SAME DVD one day later (on several test occasions) and it would arrive at her house first.
When this started looking like some really bad PR for Netflix, they fixed it, stocked up on titles, put DCs in cities around the US with the highest Netflix user population, this improved their mailing times, and started researching allowing users to watch movies over the web (which consequently is now deployed). Needless to say, throttling is no more with Netflix, and the customers who do get their monies worth -- Netflix just looses cash on. The rest (the people who let the DVDs sit at home) is how they make their profit.
Some months I too rent and return 30-40 DVDs, others I do 0. And now with no throttling, but yes, it was a reality. Netflix rocks, and Blockbuster is no comparison unless you're willing to give up diversity, a better site, excellent rating and suggestion abilities, for the ability to go grab the latest movie off the shelf without paying $3.99 to walk out of Blockbuster with it (directly) -- not to mention, using YOUR gas to go get the DVD. Think about Blockbuster is 2 miles from your house and you pay $3/gallon then its $0.66 to go grab the DVD from Blockbuster. It's free to get it in your mailbox. Blockbuster is saving themselves money everytime you come in -- and its more expensive than Netflix.
Anyway, just my thoughts and experiences! Take care television and movie lovers.
Derek Alfonso, Host
The Power of Information
http://powerofinformation.net
National Tech Talk Radio
Now I feel even more vindicated in using Netflix. Blockbuster and the rest can go jump in a creek. Netflix rules!
Nice folks. Friendly, not pushy, just easy to work with. ...and if you talk fast, you might get stuff!
I live in Portland. Wonderful city. It's not as baked as people think it is.
Then again...
It's Oregon, who cares?
Blogging because I can...
But I've also had some frustration with Netflix's queue system as well. It apparently tops out at 500 entries. I've been in the habit of enqueuing a movie whenever I hear about one that I'd like to see eventually, including those I see the trailers for on Apple's website.
Now I can no longer use the queue that way because I've gotten to about 500 entries. Now I have to check my queue and prune it before I can add a handful of new movies.
Even worse, sometimes I click the link to Add a new movie to my queue, but forget to read the page that brings me to, where I'm told the enqueue didn't happen because I've hit my queue limit. That's frustrating because (a) I end up not seeing the movie I had hoped to, because the queue was my main means of remembering to watch it, and (b) couldn't they have just replaced the "Add" button on the web page with a clear warning that I need to remove another queue entry before I can add?
Just so long as you're not a Californian trying to move here!
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
I had plenty of room, just not on my c: drive, I have another, much larger disk for data. There was no option to tell it to use another drive at all, it just failed.
Immediately I looked around on their web-site for some sort of support to contact, but I couldn't find anything other than the phone number. I was pretty sure I did not want to talk to a live person about this problem, there is nothing they would be able to do about it, it is something that would have to be passed on to some developers somewhere.
As a result I haven't bothered with the new feature (although I did spend a few minutes hacking my registry to try and get it to run on my other drive--failure).
netflix's move to human contact primarily has to do with the issue of customer retention.
sprint customer's cost of switching to competitor is higher than netflix customer's.
thus, sprint not as highly concerned with customer retention thus not as likely as netflix to emphasize human contact.
btw, i am too lazy to use caplock or shift key.
Another thing they did recently
I was really surprised. Most companies I would have expected to just bump me up one level of service (to the 4-at-a-time plan or something) while keeping me at the same price level, making me call them up to downgrade to my old level of service in order to save money. They didn't; they just dropped the price, and I didn't have to do a thing.
It's a little ridiculous that I get surprised by a company doing what ought to be the right and obvious thing, but that's how things work these days. Anyway, kudos to Netflix and whoever is in charge there. Hope they can keep it up.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
...it is easy to reach a human, does not mean it will make the experience any better. Netflix used to staff a call center in San Jose and from what I understood they used a horrid bit of home grown java bloatware that the support folken had to use on antiquated, underpowered hardware, all while suffering the normal call center pressures (including not having any authority to do much of anything save absorb abuse).
Hella yeah! I am a human being, when I have problems I like to speak to another human being. I cant bitch to a machine. I cannot ask a question outside the standard scripted questions/responses programmed into a machine (same problem exists in a lot of outsourced support, but thats another issue). Good for you Netflix! Im a human being not a revenue stream.
Why bother outsourcing when cheap non-English speaking illegals flow across the border everyday?
It will still suck.
He said "They are ESL."
You said "That should not have a bearing on the issue. Although I am from India (and ESL country)english was the first language I learnt."
Then you're not ESL, are you?
On the other hand, you didn't capitalize "english". I don't know what to make of that.
And on the gripping hand, you said "learnt" which is almost certainly a UK idiom, even tho used over here once in a while.
None of what you said has much at all to do with his primary big picture complaint, that offshoring to ESL countries is a bad idea. All you have really done is dodged his compalints with hand waving. If you had some bacon, you'd have bacon and eggs, if you had some eggs.
Next time, try answering his hig picture complaint.
Infuriate left and right
Press 1 for English
Press 2 for...
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Wonder if the two are related in any way? I.e., did they pick Oregon cause they knew there would be a large group of people seeking a job in the call center field?
...because Netflix is so well run and organized to start with. There's nothing to complain about, and I'm quite picky and love complaining. The basic system is well-designed from the user interface and queue management to the shipping and receiving back-end. Even when there's a problem, they make it as painless as I can imagine it. Defective disc? They send you a new one the day you tell them about it via their elegantly designed, straightforward web interface. No explaining, no waiting until they receive your original before they send you a new one - it's painless.
If all businesses were run this well (I probably have some Netflix employees in stitches at this point), they could all afford to have a few people answering phones in the US vs. buildings full of people in India trying to get customers to give up trying.
I am SIGNING UP for Netflix!
So many companies today seem outright hostile to their customers. I am continually amazed how companies do their very best to avoid contact with their customers. Research has shown that people hate computer menus whether they're numerical or voice recognition. And if you do manage to fight your way past those, how many times have you heard "due to unusually high call volume"... 365 days a year, right? Insane.
It's not impossible to run a great call center. I used to work at Zappos and we did our calls in-house and usually maintained wait times under 30 seconds. And the good will we generated with customers has paid off big time. We took on several more established companies with deeper pockets and so far we've left them all in the dust, largely because of our focus on customers.
Also, it's not just about having people answering the phones. There's two other critical ingredients: the phone people have to be empowered to actually serve the customer, which means they have to be well trained, but dammit, that's what it takes to run a company. And they also need to have a voice back to the company itself, so that problems that they encounter are recognized and addressed -- because customer service problems are really just customer problems. And for all the companies spending millions on ads to establish their "brand", they could establish a real, authentic brand by resolving their customer's problems.
There is so much room to improve this kind of thing. I applaud Netflix and wish the luck. Any company that wants to take on the 800lb gorillas need only treat each customer with care and respect. The gorillas never seem to figure this out.
Cheers.
"Because you're too demanding, man."
From Bart of Darkness:
Bart dials phone...
"Thank you for calling the Springfield police department... if you know the code for the crime being committed, PRESS ONE!!"
Bart mashes keys down creating a cacophony of DTMFs.
"You have selected Regicide! If you know the name of the King or Queen being murdered, PRESS ONE!!"
I probably didn't get that exactly right but... still funny, reality imitating satire.
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
Oregon, eh? Is that where the new call center is?
I've known a couple people who worked in the Silicon Valley call center at Netflix HQ and they've all reported sweatshop conditions where if you sneeze the wrong way they fire you. Rumor at the time was that they were looking for any excuse to outsource to India.
While I guess I'm happy they're at least staying domestic, I've already resolved to not give Netflix any of my business.
I've recently had problems with my local post office fucking up my mail, and basically sending stuff back to everyone as "Return to sender" when I haven't moved in 3 years. It started with Netflix, so I contacted them to discuss it and found out more information that I could take to my post office. They are very friendly and helpful! :)
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
When did you perform these test. You also did not say if items farther down on your list shipped instead. I have been a subscriber since April of 2003. During this time, it has been very rare that a movie not make it into the next day's mail after receiving it. I don't think there has been a single month that I did not at least get 3x my at a time limit in a month. It is also very rare that a movie not take one day to get to Netflix, and one day to get the new movie back to me. Oddly enough, I even once had a movie that went out in Saturdays mail, and I received the new movie on Tuesday. This is only odd because Monday was a holiday, so no mail.
It seems to me that Netflix has too many customers for 'throttling' to be on a case by case basis, and given the number of movies I go through, I should have been caught in this 'throttling'.
"Now realize I have a national talk radio show so I wouldn't put my name on the line if I wasn't sure."
I'm not sure what country you live in, but here in the US, having a national talk radio show certainly does not give a person credibility. It's exactly the opposite. Anyone on talk radio that isn't talking out of their ass has to prove it because being full of it is the expectation on talk radio.
I signed up with netflix a couple months ago, and so far I have been EXTREMELY satisfied with the service. I've been recommending it to everyone. Stuff like this is just the icing on the cake. Maybe I'll go buy some stock!
I had to contact Netflix yesterday. In the past, I would dig through their contact page and try to find the right email link. It was extremely surprising - and VERY pleasing - to be able to pick up the phone and call them directly.
Even more pleasing: The helpful person on the other end of the line. Cheerful, almost too much so. But he managed to resolve the issue (which would have taken a couple of days for them to resolve if it had been done with email).
I do understand why companies use email, web-based feedback forms, etc. for customer contact. In Netflix's case, they're a customer service site that REALLY needs this sort of personalized assistance. And after yesterday's great experience, I'm reminded why I use Netflix, NOT some other DVD rental company. (That might sound like a sales pitch, but that's how I feel.)
Ah, kids. There's nothing like having your three-year-old yell "Shut up you stupid asshole!" in the crowded local Costco.
Repeatedly.
While you're wearing a shirt with your workplace's logo prominently displayed on it.
When you work for a local pediatrics clinic.
Yeah.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
The Three R's of Portland:
Racial Sensitivity, Recycling and Reproductive Rights
Or, Why Portland Sucks
Dorchester, MA - August 12, 2003 ~ "Latte Town" was coined a few years back and is the most appropriate term for the City of Portland that I have ever heard. A Latte town consists of mostly white, educated baby boomers and young single people. The inhabitants of the town are usually newcomers who have priced out all the original inhabitants. These towns are usually expensive, pretentious, abound in natural fibers and are laid back on the surface. Latte towns like Portland pride themselves on their most cherished concepts of diversity and inclusiveness. Most Portlanders accept this myth as Gospel but upon close examination Portland's dirty little secret is revealed. Portland is an overwhelmingly white, non-ethnic city. It is as vanilla as it gets so it makes one wonder what all the celebrating of diversity is all about. Drive through any neighborhood surrounding the downtown area and the impression that you get is that Portland is nothing more than a series of elitist ghettos compromised of rich white homosexuals, rich white yuppies, rich white hippies, rich white trust funders, and rich white kids from the suburbs pretending to be street people. Where's the diversity? Well it doesn't exist but the average Portlander likes the concept and in their eyes the different shades of rich whites all constituent diversity. In a series of articles I will attempt to breakdown and explain these subtle distinctions between the various factions of lily white, latte people that make Portland what it is.
The Artist-Intellectual
The visitor or newcomer to Portland is bound to be struck by the sheer numbers that belong to this group. They seem to be everywhere and are in fact everywhere. They are the reason that all the coffee shops have tables and chairs. The artist-intellectual fancies himself as a poet, a writer, a musician, a filmmaker, etc. You get the drift. They spend most of their days idling around the coffee establishments that one finds every 10 feet. They are usually equipped with a notebook that they use for their poems, journals or their artwork. No one ever gets to see the contents of these notebooks. More often than not they have a beaten and weathered paper back copy of some book authored by Kafka or William S. Boroughs. They love to discuss their favorite subject, themselves. Given the opportunity they will prattle on for hours about their poems, art work or the film they are making. You never get to actually see any of their work but you do get to hear about it. Their lives are like one never ending semester in grad school. Initially I believed these losers but then got to thinking. What would an aspiring actor, artist, musician, filmmaker being doing in Portland Oregon, a latte town? Why wouldn't they be in NYC or LA? Because they're phonies, that's why. Here's how it works with these clowns. They flunk out of college in New Jersey so their parents send them to Reed College in Portland in hopes that they will get their act together. They drop out of Reed but stay in Portland while still on Daddy's tab or some trust find. One Saturday Josh or Seth drifts down to one of the hundreds of hippie craft markets downtown. Some hippie is selling didgeridoos that he made I between bong reps. Josh buy one and takes it home where he proceeds to get baked after which he blows a few sour notes into the didgeridoo. The next day he's a musician. Not really but that's what he's telling everyone at the coffee house and pretending is good enough for a Portland artist-intellectual, in fact it's everything. In three months he will switch his designation from musician to filmmaker and then onto to something else 3 months later. As long as it sounds cool he will keep this charade up and no one in his circles will call him on it because they are doing the
"Hello, and welcome to Netflix. Please press the number of the movie you want to rent, now."
(beep)
"Why don't you just TELL ME the movie you want to rent!!!"
Take a lesson from RackSpace Managed Hosting if you want to know what good customer service is!
I live a *long* way from a netflix shipping facility, and in a couple years of having an account,
I contacted them twice. Both times, they were the pinnacle of good customer service.
First one, the DVD arrived broken in half.
Second one, the DVD never got back to Netflix. They credited the return to my account, saying most
times the DVD resurfaces within a month.
My longstanding gripe, and why I cancelled my account, was that I was receiving DVD's that were too
scratched to watch. Multiple players, varying ages (early-gen Panasonic, a philips 642, and a fairly
new $300 JVC VHS-DVDR hybrid).... all would skip. When this happened about 5 times in a month.
Meanwhile, a mom-n-pop video store 2 miles away *literally* buffs every DVD between uses. I stopped
my Netflix account one summer and just haven't felt like I need to restart it.
This of course is a crude but somewhat entertaining reference to geography and the quality of people from California... *cough*
And somewhat ironically, I live in CA now. After living in various parts of Northern and Southern California, I can say that the further North you travel along the western shoreline of North America, the friendlier the people get.
The Three R's of Portland:
Racial Sensitivity, Recycling and Reproductive Rights
Or, Why Portland Sucks
"Latte Town" was coined a few years back and is the most appropriate term for the City of Portland that I have ever heard. A Latte town consists of mostly white, educated baby boomers and young single people. The inhabitants of the town are usually newcomers who have priced out all the original inhabitants. These towns are usually expensive, pretentious, abound in natural fibers and are laid back on the surface. Latte towns like Portland pride themselves on their most cherished concepts of diversity and inclusiveness. Most Portlanders accept this myth as Gospel but upon close examination Portland's dirty little secret is revealed. Portland is an overwhelmingly white, non-ethnic city. It is as vanilla as it gets so it makes one wonder what all the celebrating of diversity is all about. Drive through any neighborhood surrounding the downtown area and the impression that you get is that Portland is nothing more than a series of elitist ghettos compromised of rich white homosexuals, rich white yuppies, rich white hippies, rich white trust funders, and rich white kids from the suburbs pretending to be street people. Where's the diversity? Well it doesn't exist but the average Portlander likes the concept and in their eyes the different shades of rich whites all constituent diversity. In a series of articles I will attempt to breakdown and explain these subtle distinctions between the various factions of lily white, latte people that make Portland what it is.
The Artist-Intellectual
The visitor or newcomer to Portland is bound to be struck by the sheer numbers that belong to this group. They seem to be everywhere and are in fact everywhere. They are the reason that all the coffee shops have tables and chairs. The artist-intellectual fancies himself as a poet, a writer, a musician, a filmmaker, etc. You get the drift. They spend most of their days idling around the coffee establishments that one finds every 10 feet. They are usually equipped with a notebook that they use for their poems, journals or their artwork. No one ever gets to see the contents of these notebooks. More often than not they have a beaten and weathered paper back copy of some book authored by Kafka or William S. Boroughs. They love to discuss their favorite subject, themselves. Given the opportunity they will prattle on for hours about their poems, art work or the film they are making. You never get to actually see any of their work but you do get to hear about it. Their lives are like one never ending semester in grad school. Initially I believed these losers but then got to thinking. What would an aspiring actor, artist, musician, filmmaker being doing in Portland Oregon, a latte town? Why wouldn't they be in NYC or LA? Because they're phonies, that's why. Here's how it works with these clowns. They flunk out of college in New Jersey so their parents send them to Reed College in Portland in hopes that they will get their act together. They drop out of Reed but stay in Portland while still on Daddy's tab or some trust find. One Saturday Josh or Seth drifts down to one of the hundreds of hippie craft markets downtown. Some hippie is selling didgeridoos that he made I between bong reps. Josh buy one and takes it home where he proceeds to get baked after which he blows a few sour notes into the didgeridoo. The next day he's a musician. Not really but that's what he's telling everyone at the coffee house and pretending is good enough for a Portland artist-intellectual, in fact it's everything. In three months he will switch his designation from musician to filmmaker and then onto to something else 3 months later. As long as it sounds cool he will keep this charade up and no one in his circles will call him on it because they are doing the same thing.
The Activist
Th
Partly it's a 40-year-old running joke. Partly it's dead serious.
The part that's a running joke started way back with our Governor Tom McCall, who exhorted people "Come visit Oregon... but please don't stay!" (He wanted tourists, but not a big population gain.) This led to all sorts of amusing effects such as private efforts to sell discounted gasoline to southbound California-plated cars, and - OMG YouTube rules!- some funny local beer commercials from waaay back when Blitz-Weinhard was considered good beer. (You can watch this video for as good an answer as any I'll give. It totally reflects the attitude in its time.)
The dead serious part is not limited to Oregon, but has some truth throughout the western US. It's both cultural and economic.
Economically, the Californian housing market grew in value much faster than most anywhere else west of the rockies. When people decided to leave Cali for whatever reason they'd sell their houses and hit the other markets with outrageous purchasing power. This stirred - and continues to stir - a significant amount of resentment. That tremendous purchasing power also allows Californians to bring along their culture and expectations, imposing it on often sullen and resentful locals in a process known sometimes as Californication. McMansions, strip malls, suburban sprawl, SUV-driving environmentalist poseurs, methamphetamine, gangs, three strikes laws, reckless anti-tax activism, gay pride - all are things commonly attributed (often wrongly) to the influx of Californians over the last few decades.
For my part I focus more on the running joke aspect; the economic and cultural changes are fait accompli so it's no good bitching about them. (And some of the changes brought by Calfornians have been positive, bit you'll rarely get an Oregonian to admit it.)
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
But I must so, since I've signed up again, it's been pretty good. Haven't noticed any "throttling" so far and the only "long wait" in my queue is Superfuzz, which just came out. And they have a much faster turnaround than they used to. We'll see how they hold up in the future.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I think 500 movies is a reasonable number. It would take most people over a year to go through all those flicks. Perhaps they should have a second list of "thinking about it" titles, for your kind of user. I know people who do something similar with their Amazon wish list, which can be hairy in many ways.
To do list for Windows
I can not stand it when I am told "call us" you have email support but you aren't willing to deal with anything with out a call, so what's the point of email. Microsoft does this now all the time, as does many others. In addition when calling about a problem with the telephone don't make it so I MUST have a second telephone. I called T-mobile the other day because my cellphone was acting up and it was misrouting my calls. The first thing they told me is they needed me to go to my home phone. I didn't have one. I don't have use a second phone. They would not help me unless I had that. That's horrible service. We could have done it by email or me writing down the steps and then doing them, instead they denied me customer support.
However please don't send form letter emails and don't ask 20 unrelated questions. Resolve MY problem, not every possible problem.
When I worked in Tech support at Harvard university the policy was answer the email and then use a form letter if it's a common problem. We had Sasser and blaster on campus at the time and we would send those as form letter (essentially telling them to come in or make an appointment as they have a major virus) but that's the exception. If people were having problems with their network card we would NEVER ask about what sound card they had, how fast the machine was or any other question that is out of the ordinary with out trying the normal path first.
The whole thing is email is "fire and forget" technology. I can write the company an email at any time. If I call I have to make a dedicated effort to resolving this, planning 30 minutes to an hour of being talked down to until they get to the ACTUAL solution part. Even then resolution is never guarenteed on the phone. I can be passed off as "We can't help you, it's user error". Yeah when my 360 scratched a disc it's a user error. It can't be because they used a poor component for the DVD drive?
The reason they want you to call is so they can ask you the 300 questions to get your personal information in a system with out you realizing it and that's what I find the most offensive.
I read that many people use sub accounts to circumvent the limit. Every subaccount can have 500 movies in its queue. However, eventually you'll hit the limits on subaccounts.
I predict that they will soon remove the option to cancel your account online. You will be directed to call their friendly support staff, who will try and talk you out of it.
Anyone know if they're going to rent Blu-Ray?
The revolution will NOT be televised.
"Blockbuster's queue system is weak. It's nowhere nearly as sophisticated as Netflix's. Moving things around in Blockbuster's queue is a pain and it lacks features like getting a summary of the movie just by hovering your cursor over it and dragging-and-dropping movies to change their order." Clearly you haven't seen Blockbuster's site in at least 6 months. They completely redesigned the site and if I'm not mistaken they had drag-and-drop queue ordering before Netflix did. They also have pop-up summaries by hovering over the title. Please get your facts straight before posting.
I canceled Netflix, went 6-8 months with out it, then went back one day to re-up. 2 months later I get a very nice promotion in the mail that Netflix wants me back, and they will give me a 'special rate.' Well the rate was lower than what I was paying now, so I emailed them requesting the new rate. It was handled all over email all in about 3-5 days, but that is why I had to contact Netflix.
Sig? What? I thought this was a non smoking area.
I have been a Netflix subscriber since about 2000. Every now and then I would go to a Blockbuster to pick up a movie "right now" that might have been buried in my queue or just a spontaneous rental. I no longer use Blockbuster for these rentals because of the marketing and hassle just to check out. The barrage of upselling sodas, snacks, movie deals cards, etc when all I want is my movie and go. I still have an average of 30 movies in my queue and quite happy getting two movies every week but now and again still crave the spontaneous one in between. I am now in love with RedBox that is in my local grocery store and I've seen a few at other shopping centers. I don't know how far reaching or large they are but this was an awesome idea. http://www.redbox.com/
"Keep at least 3-6 full bottles of hard alcohol on hand, a 2 week resignation notice,..." - Poetmatt
Well, they didn't have this 5 months ago when I tried it out. As I said in my original post, when I tried it out, Netflix's queue system was clearly superior. They may well have changed it since, as you say. But I'm sure as Hell not going back to them to find out.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Bummer. Netflix got rid of its email support. I couldn't find a contact email on their site, nor could I couldn't find a TTY phone number. This just reeks of forsaking their customers to cut costs.
I am not a Netflix customer. I am a Pirate Bay customer. However, I had been considering subscribing to Netflix, but I will definitely be taking my business elsewhere. I prefer email, because it takes less time, and doesn't cost me anything.
Imagine the hassle that someone who can't talk, or can't hear, would have if they were already a Netflix customer and wanted to quit?
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
So NetFlix makes it "easy to reach a human" ... as opposed to using email, which I suppose is written by trained monkeys, or outsourcing ... well, we all know them thar durn furriners ain't really human, don't we?
Sheesh.
Not that I don't think this is a good thing for customers, so long as electronic communications are also available; but honestly, don't you think the article could have been expressed slightly better?
What they should be doing is secure millions of dollars in tax breaks from PDX and then when those dry - up pack up and head down to Chile or Brazil.
0 1&cid=20174091r g+closure&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2655
http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=dell+rosebu
I have called ING Direct a few times, and an actual human answered on the first or second ring! If you're looking for a new online bank, they're worth a look.
(I am in no way affiliate with ING Direct. I can just appreciate good customer service.)
There's nothing you have that they can't take away: Absolute zero, Gentle Jack, bottom line.
they didn't outsource to the southeastern US. My brother used to work at a call center in WV taking cable TV calls for people who lived in the south (e.g. Georgia, Alabama) and they would complain as expected when their cable was cut off. Of course what was surprising was when they admitted to not paying their bill and still had to question why the cable was cut off. What is funny is that when their account was back in good status they would call back in to have their service "cut back on". I never understood the rationale for their terminology.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
With Netflix, service doesn't hardly matter. The automated forms covered the vast majority of issues, going on at least 4 years now. The reason they're working on service is because 60 Minutes did a story on Netflix, brought up the issue of a couple disgruntled customers trying to work out a billing issue, and even the CEO had a hard time finding the phone number buried on the web site. No doubt that spurred them to improve the support situation.
The only time I had to contact Netflix was to get them to remove a highly inappropriate comment (review), and that was a horrendous experience... After 3 e-mails, and a MONTH of waiting, I finally got a reply saying it would be taken care of. After another month without action, I e-mailed again, and within a few weeks, the comment was finally removed. However, even that has (finally) been resolved, as reporting an "offensive" comment is now just a button on the site.
IMHO, since service is almost entirely automated, PRICE is a much bigger issue, and Netflix really shot themselves in the foot there... When they raised their monthly fee from $20 to $22 (a bit more than a year ago IIRC) it was at the worst possible time, when Walmart's service was going strong and ~$4 less, and Blockbuster was just about to enter the fray.
I have no doubt they lost a lot of customers with that stupid decision, because I nearly left myself... After 3 years of Netflix, I got ready to switch by moving the few DVDs which Walmart didn't have available, to the top of my Netflix queue, so I could go through them, and leave. Luckily the list was long enough that I stayed for 2 months, when they suddenly dropped the price to $18... I can't help but wonder how many long-time Netflix viewers made the exodus, as I was about to, which made them completely reverse their mistake. In any case, they've announced another $1 price drop, and frankly, I'd much rather have them drop another dollar from the price, rather than setting up a call center 99% of subscribers will never use.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Mind you, e-mail support isn't always bad, but Netflix's was immensely frustrating, for some reason. You could explain the problem in very plain English and you'd still get a "solution" that wasn't one. For example, I requested a particular Mexican horror movie that the online guide said was published by Something Weird. When it arrived, it was the right movie, but it wasn't the Something Weird version, with all the extras that were promised; it was a no-frills version from a publisher notorious for putting out DVDs that are cheap -- in both senses of the word. I wasn't pleased, because I always look forward to Something Weird's extras, so I e-mailed to complain.
I got a cheery, perky note back explaining that to access the extras, I had to use the "extras" menu.
I e-mailed back again, stressing that there WAS no extras menu.
I got a cheery, perky note back explaining that this was only one disc in a two-disc set (not the truth) and that I would have to request the other disc to see the extras.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
I am imagining the phone call to go like this.
*ring ring* Hello and wel...
*BWEEP*
What...
*BWAP*
Pardon me but I'm not...
*BLEEN*
Stop pressing numbers...
*BOOP*
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.