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Netflix Makes It Easy To Reach a Human

Posted by kdawson on from the unlisted-at-gethuman-dot-com dept.

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.'"

11 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Call center in Oregon... by thatskinnyguy · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:Call center in Oregon... by Khuffie · · Score: 2, Informative

      GameTap has the best customer service I've seen. Not only was there virtually no wait time, the person I was talking to was obviously a gamer (which is great, since it's a gaming service), you could tell he wasn't reading word for word from a script, and actually went out of his way to figure things out.

    2. Re:Call center in Oregon... by teh_commodore · · Score: 2, Informative

      I do happen to be from Texas. There's nothing about a southern drawl that is unintelligible.

      In all of the times I've called customer support (both domestic centers and outsourced) I've never had anyone not understand what I was saying. I've had more difficulty understanding them.

      And while it's great for you that you happened to learn English as your first language, that doesn't automatically mean that we can assume the entire nation of India speaks perfectly fluent English. It's only common sense to assume that if the hiring pool is in a nation where the majority of citizens don't learn English as their first language, then the majority of hires will speak limited English.

      You seem to have an acute case of closed-mindedness. It was ignorant of you to make such a statement about the fine people of Texas, and it was also ignorant of you to assume that you, with your fortunate upbringing, represent the whole, or even the majority of citizens of "ESL" nations.

      --
      --"insert clever quote here"
    3. Re:Call center in Oregon... by misleb · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hates outsourcing with Teh Very Core of my Being


      I think you mean "off-shoring." Outsourcing is just when you pay a consultant or another company to handle some part of your business. Could still be in the same country. Offshoring is when you either hire employees overseas or outsource to another company overseas. Although I suppose it doesn't necessarily have to be "overseas." It could be on the same continent, I suppose.

      Or do you really hate outsourcing to the very core of your being?

      -matthew
      --
      "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
    4. Re:Call center in Oregon... by plague3106 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I am fairly good with accents and to me, the southern drawl is not an issue. However, I know several people who DO have a problem with understanding various accents within the US including the southern drawl, the NY talk and ebonics. There is nothing about the indian accent that is unintelligible either.

      Southern accents have never been an issue for me either, but more often than not Indian accents are. The problem is that the Indian accent is so think it IS unintelligible. I don't think you're a good judge of that because you were raised in India and were exposed to it growing up. Most people in the US aren't exposed to thick Indian accents on English speech, and for us it IS very hard to understand.

      Even some of the Indians I've worked with I've had to really concentrate to work through the accent. Others have had less of an accent, probably because they've been here for quite a while.

  2. Yet another way Netflix is superior to Blockbuster by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Informative
    I used to be on Netflix years ago, when they first got started. But I left when they started the subscription model and started throttling.

    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.
  3. Not entirely the situation.... by PlatyPaul · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
  4. Re:Wow, cool... um, can I have my email back? by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I believe they still have the "Report a problem with this disc" option in the queue, where you can notify them if you haven't received a disc (or it was damaged) with just a couple of clicks. I used it before when I received one that was damaged.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  5. Re:And if you want to use email? by twostar · · Score: 2, Informative

    Obviously you don't use Netflix because if you did you would know you report shipping problems via the website. You go to your queue and at the top of the list, just under the dvd's that have been shipped to you, is a link that says "Mislabeled, lost or damaged DVD? Report a problem and order replacements". Three more clicks and you have a report filed and a replacement or next on the queue is sent out.

    This phone center is for other problems with the service.

  6. Re:Good news! by gallwapa · · Score: 2, Informative

    Get Netflix anyway - they'll send you HBO shows on DVD :p

    We just finished Deadwood Season 3

  7. Re:Another point to Netflix: by Uncle+Rummy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Netflix didn't drop their prices to do "the right and obvious thing", they did it in response to increasing competition from Blockbuster.