NetFlix: First Run Movies From the Mailbox
Written: Dec 15 '04 (Updated Dec 15 '04)
| Ease of Ordering: |
 |
|
| Customer Service: |
 |
|
| Selection: |
 |
|
| On-Time Delivery: |
|
|
|
| Full Review |
We've been using Netflix almost exclusively for DVD movie rentals since our home theater was first installed in our previous house about 18 months ago.
About Netflix and their Movie Rental Service
Netflix popped onto the scene in 1999 during the dot-com boom with a unique method of serving their DVD rental customers, by mail order only. In a world that seemed to be filled with nothing but Blockbusters and mom & pop video shops, Netflix was a unique way of doing business.
I joined Netflix with a trial membership back in 1999 but quickly realized I did not watch movies on my (then) small TV enough to warrant the expense. Speaking of trial memberships, Netflix offers a two week trial membership for all customers. Basically, it's a full membership in every way, there's just a two week grace period before they start charging your credit card.
And charge that card they will. For a base rate of $17.99 per month, Netflix members can order and receive as many DVDs as they want, up to three at a time. They can return those DVDs when they want. Netflix sends the next available DVD in the customer's queue when they receive a DVD from the customer.
Other plans are available for customers with different video watching habits. Netflix offers the following plans with the following numbers of DVD's out at a time:
1. 3-at-a-time (Standard) for $17.99/month
2. 5-at-a-time for $29.99 a month
3. 8-at-a-time for $47.99 a month
4. 2-at-a-time Budget plan (up to 4 rentals a month) for $11.99
Netflix claims that more than 85 percent of their members are within a one-day shipping radius of their 29 shipping centers.
Using the Netflix rental service and Website
To describe the Netflix experience is to describe using its website because that's really the primary way the customer interacts with Netflix. In my experience, it works well.
Once you've signed up with Netflix and created an account, you're presented with three main tabs at the website: Browse, Recommendations and Queue. The most important of these three is the Queue tab.
Using the Queue
Customers browse and add movies to their queue, arranging the movies in the order that they would like to have them shipped. Netflix ships from the top of the queue, skipping any movies that are unavailable.
The queue page is divided into three main sections:
1. Movies at home: This is simply a listing of the movies that Netflix has shipped to you and their estimated arrival date. As with all of the other entries in the other sections of your queue, this section includes columns showing the movie rating, MPAA rating and the film's genre. There's nothing that you can do online to reorder or change this part of the page, it's set at Netflix. It changes as your movies return.
2. DVDs in your Queue: This is the list of DVDs that you have queued to check out. Ours currently has 67 movies in it. Netflix recommends that you have a good dozen or so movies in your queue at all times. In addition to the movie rating, MPAA rating and genre, there are three other column. One column lists the movie's availability (i.e. Available Now), the other two columns are for deleting a section from your queue or reordering your queue. If you're an active Netflix member, it's best if you manage this queue on a weekly basis to make sure your favorite movies are always ready to be shipped to you.
3. Awaiting Release: This is where you put in movies that are in the Netflix database but aren't yet available on DVD. This is very helpful for us because since we have a home theater, we don't ever go to movie theaters anymore. When I see a preview that interests me for a film that's coming out, I add it to this section so that as soon as it's available it gets dumped into my queue.
Netflix has also updated their queue service so that you can add your queue to your favorite web portal page or other RSS reader (cell phone, etc.).
Browsing
Browsing movie selections is easy at Netflix. Thanks to the way they've laid this section out, I've been able to rent and view many movies I would have otherwise forgotten about. At the top of the browsing page is an area for you to rate your most recent rentals. This helps Netflix make recommendations for you.
Based on those ratings, Netflix includes a recommendations section just beneath your ratings section. I find movies I'm interested in here about 50 percent of the time. The browse page also includes a spotlight section, a "Movers on the Netflix Top 100" section which lists the movies that jumped the highest on their Top 100 (usually new releases) and a critics picks section.
On the right is a helpful menu bar that allows you to browse by new release, the Top 100 list, critics' picks, and my favorite - Award Winners. You can browse by who won Best Film award in various years, etc. There's also the typical genre section and a unique set of guides to movies at the bottom arranged by things such as "By Decade", "By Studio" and by "Easter Eggs".
Recommendations
The recommendations tab gets the least use from me as it's basically a more in-depth rehash of the top section of the Browse tab. It's really just a slightly more personalized Browse tab and I find this section redundant.
Netflix sends you the three movies in your queue in a unique postage-paid envelope with a return envelope included. You just tear off the top half of the envelope and it becomes the return envelope. They only send the DVD disc itself, in a special sleeve. If it's a movie with extended special features on a second disc, you only get the movie disc.
After watching the movie, you return it in its postage paid sleeve. Watching your Netflix queue, or checking mail alerts, you'll be alerted when your movie gets back there and when they're sending you a new one. If your movie doesn't show up at your house or doesn't make it back to Netflix, you can mark it as lost and Netflix will send you that movie or another one on your queue again. They're very trusting about this as long as you don't abuse the feature. In 18 months and 100 or so movies, only one of our DVDs has been lost.
If you get a disc so damaged you can't play it, you can mark the disc as damaged on its sleeve and return it for a new copy. If you lose one of your mailer sleeves, you can put up to two DVDs back into a single return mailer sleeve for the same postage.
How We Like the Service
Overall I am generally pleased with our Netflix service. Sure, it has some high points and some low points, but it averages out to be quite decent.
We have used Netflix in two different locations, one that's a very metropolitan, Internet-savvy location where we used to live, and now from our more rural location out here in what I affectionately refer to as "The Sticks". We're still only a day's delivery time from our local Netflix shipping center here, but we get first run, high demand movies right away now, whereas in our old, more urban home, we always had to wait. My husband surmises that's because fewer people here use the Netflix service.
For instance, we recently got the Harry Potter movie the day after it was released. And Spider Man 2 came to us the day after it was released as well. Previously those would have both been in a wait state. Netflix determines your shipping center based on your address in your profile so when you move, updating your profile online automatically updates your shipping center.
The selection of movies is good and we've never found a DVD we wanted to watch that wasn't available on Netflix. We have, however, gotten damaged and marred discs in the mail. It is a great disappointment to put in a new DVD only to have it freeze on you, particularly midway through. I advise thoroughly inspecting your DVD before you even put it in so you don't invest time in a movie that halfway through becomes unwatchable.
In 18 months and about 100 movies, we've had somewhere around five discs that were too damaged to view. Enough to make us wary, so now we check prior to viewing each one.
Customer Service
I have to admit, I have never had to deal in-depth with customer service. Netflix has built-in systems for handling most problems you could encounter: missing discs and damaged discs. So reporting these problems and getting them remedied is automated and works like a charm for us.
Should you want to obtain customer service from Netflix however, something beyond the automated stuff, you will have a hard time finding a person to speak with directly. Netflix puts all of their customer service functions in FAQs and forms directly on the website. This is one thing I hate about online only operations, so many of them including Netflix and Amazon, act as if actually speaking to or interacting with a customer one on one is beneath them and is not part of their job. For true customer service I give Netflix low marks, based on its sheer lack of availability.
Summary
We are very pleased with our Netflix service so far. There are other similar mail order DVD companies out there now, but they're all running to play catch up with the business model that Netflix established. While I like our Netflix service a great deal, I wouldn't hesitate to drop it and check out other alternatives if the lack of true customer service were to become an issue.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Movie Subscription
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
mrs-j
|
 - Top 100 |
|
Reviews written: 319
Trusted by: 120 members
About Me:
"Man was made for something better than disturbing dirt." - Oscar Wilde
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.