The Reason Blockbuster Video is going down: No Competitive Advantage

While I agree with Scott Jagow at Public Radio that Blockbuster is “probably toast,” it doesn’t/didn’t have to be that way.

I rarely rent movies. I dropped Netflix because of all the scratched discs. Otherwise, it was a great service. I’m considering GreenCine (Netflix for film snobs). I usually buy DVDs that I like because I’ll probably want to watch them again. An exception happened the other day when I was looking for a film I wanted to “preview” before buying and couldn’t find adequate clips of it online. So, I went to my local Blockbuster Video to rent It Might Get Loud, a documentary on the electric guitar told via Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), The Edge (U2), and Jack White (White Stripes). It was a great documentary and I’ll end up buying it. But, the experience at Blockbuster was the intriguing part.

As I walked into the front of Blockbuster Video, I noticed a large banner above the door where they compared themselves to Netflix and Redbox (who are certainly encroaching on their market share). The upshot of the sell was “we’ve got you covered.” Next, I spent way too much time trolling through ramshackle eyes, stepping past posters of the Beatles, toys, small appliances/game systems and everything but videos until I got to the section for Documentary/Music. The film was nowhere to be found. Stubbornly, I looked in a few other sections, confused as to whether the slipcase of the DVD meant it was in stock or not. Finally I asked the employee, who looked it up and found that it was “along the wall somewhere” under New Releases. The film was released last summer. What constitutes a “New Release” then?

Why can’t Blockbuster increase the value proposition by offering a self-serve kiosk, tied in to a remote/iPhone application, to allow customers to see directly into inventory and, importantly, where a film is located within the store? Even better, show the number of rentals/reviews/throughput through all BB stores, etc.

Esquire: Why are you hiding your customer service phone number?

Everybody’s heard a story like this. I’m going to tell mine anyway. I needed to change the address on my Esquire magazine subscription. Dutifully, I went online and found that I needed an account number, which I don’t have, or I could put in my name, which didn’t work. Alas, there was no phone number for customer service anywhere on the web site. I had an old issue (with the mailing label torn off, so I couldn’t find my account number) and there was no phone number for customer service anywhere in the magazine.

Folks, this is 2010. The old days of hiding behind a web site are so, well, 2000.

I searched Google and the first link returned the appropriately titled “Gethuman.com,” where I found Esquire’s customer service number, which is 1-800-888-5400. Called, punched through the convoluted menu to get to a human and got my address changed. The customer service, by the way, was excellent. As I was being sold on another product from Esquire, I did chip in that hiding the number was a bad idea. The person on the other end, while polite, stated: “That’s the way of the future.”

Let me explain the “way of the future”: word of mouth. Continue to use antiquated methods to run from customers and find yourself, and your “secret” phone number, in a blog somewhere — like this one.

Just for good measure, I’ll repeat: Esquire’s customer service phone number is 1-800-888-5400. Press 0 to reach a human.