Under a Gibbous Moon

I have been a customer of Blockbuster’s Blockbuster by Mail service for over a year now.  For most of that time, I have been very happy with it. I have the 2 DVDs at a time with the 5 (originally 3) in store trade in per month. The in store trade ins are the main reason I went with Blockbuster over Netflix. I could drop my movies off at any Blockbuster store and exchange them for new movies on the spot. Even if I didn’t exchange them, they were scanned in at the store which triggered them as being returned which then would kick out my new movies without me having to wait for them to be received by mail first.

The last couple of months though has seen a shift in that. Where before I could turn over a set of movies in a week. They are now taking as much as one or two weeks to send me a new movie. Also, even if I return both movies at the same time, there will be a one to two week gap between the two movies being mailed. This has reduced the number of movies that I receive each month to a pathetically low number. Frustrated, I tried to contact them. They didn’t have a phone number listed on the site but instead just an email form. I sent this email:

I have the two at a time total access plan. For the last couple of months the speed of service has become extremely poor. The turn around time on movies that have been received by you has been around one to two weeks. Additionally, even if I return both movies at the same time, their replacements are not shipped out at the same time and are again, separated by a week or two. This delay has become so severe that I have not had two mailed movies in my possession in several months.
What I need is an adequate explanation as to why the previously excellent service has become so poor as of late and what you plan to do in order to bring it back up to standard. Failure to do so will result in me taking my business else where.

I do have to give them credit for what comes next. They must have an algorithm for processing emails that looks for key phrases such as “taking my business else where” because it took them about 30 minutes to respond:

Thank you for contacting Blockbuster Customer Care

We apologize for the shipping delay you are experiencing with your account.

This was due to a system upgrade within our distribution centers.  I have escalated your issue to our IT department so that it can be resolved as quickly as possible.  If your normal shipping has not resumed within 3-5 business days, please let us know so that we can take further action to resolve the issue.

In the meantime, I am sending a separate email containing a link to print one e-coupon good for a free movie rental at any participating Blockbuster store.  If you have not received the email within 24-48 hours, please check your junk/spam email folder in case the email has been rerouted.

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we improve your online service to make it better than ever.

Please let me know if there’s anything else that I can help you with.

Of course, I am doubtful of the explanation. I would hope that a system upgrade would not be causing problems with customer shipments for months and that even if there was, that the problem would be conveniently rectified in 3-5 business days.

Of course, if this does actually fix the problem, I’ll be perfectly satisfied but I am taking a wait and see attitude for now.

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