I just received a notice that my Blockbuster.com subscription pricing would be increasing at the end of the year. My original plan price was $14.99, then was increased to 17.99 earlier this year, and is now going up to $19.99. So I went to the Blockbuster website to see about alternate plans.
Upon reviewing the currently available plans I noticed that none of them seemed to offer the two monthly "e-coupons" (good for one free movie or game rental each) that I get now. Upon searching their FAQs for clarification, here's what I found:
Question: Why don't I receive e-coupons? My friend receives an e-coupon each month.Answer: We recently enhanced our plans to provide our subscribers with more options. As part of this effort, e-coupons were eliminated from most of, but not all, our plans. If you have friends who still receive e-coupons, it may be because they are on one of the older plans that still include e-coupons.
Hold the fort. When they "enhanced their plans" to "give more options," they eliminated coupons good for one free anything in the store? What's more flexible than that? How can the elimination of a great feature like this be either an "enhancement" or "give me more options?" This kind of doublespeak makes Blockbuster look silly, if not downright disingenuous.
C'mon, Blockbuster...you can do better by your customers than this.
So, in the interest of honesty, here's what I suggest as an alternate FAQ:
Question: Why don't I receive e-coupons? My friend receives an e-coupon each month.Answer: We recently changed our plans to better serve more customers in a cost-effective manner. Coupons were confusing to some customers and were not used by most, suggesting that we could do better by focusing on other aspects of our service.* As a result, we eliminated e-coupons from all plans available to new members. If you have friends who still receive e-coupons, it may be because they are on one of the older plans that still include e-coupons.
* I made this sentence up just to give some reasonable justification for their decision. In my experience, customers are much more willing to work with you and accommodate your pricing/terms if the rationale behind them is clearly explained and reasonable (i.e., not overly advantageous to the provider).
