If anything proves the power of the consumer voice, the Netflix flip-flop does. In the company’s official statement, CEO Reed Hastings says, “There is a difference between moving quickly – which Netflix has done very well for years – and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.”
The statement doesn’t get too specific, but it looks like in the company’s haste to secure a position in the growing and extremely competitive market for streaming content, Netflix took its eye off the target: the customer.
We may never know what the execs at Netflix were thinking. Someone there must have thought about the possibility that customers would find the extra ‘work’ a bit annoying. Maybe they thought they weren’t asking that much. They obviously really underestimated the results of such a move.
Remember the KISS rule for writing copy? Keep it Simple, Stupid. It was what Steve Jobs did so well. He kept his products simple to use and created a need we didn’t even know we had. Kind of like Starbucks, too. If someone had asked me 15 years ago if I would pay $3 for a cup of coffee, I would have laughed.
As for Netflix, they did the right thing keeping the websites together, finally listening to its consumers who said read my lips, keep it simple, stupid. The verdict’s still out, but we’ll find out if that’s enough to keep the romance going.