No Qwickster! No Problem! Netflix Listens to Customers and Leaves DVD’s Under the Netflix Umbrella.

I received an email from Netflix today letting me know that

1.  The price changes that went into effect for Netflix services are still in effect.

2.  The customers hated the idea of Qwickster so the DVD’s will remain under the Netflix name.

Here’s a copy of the mailing. 

Dear Chris,

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password…in other words, no Qwikster.

While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.

We're constantly improving our streaming selection. We've recently added hundreds of movies from Paramount, Sony, Universal, Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, MGM and Miramax. Plus, in the last couple of weeks alone, we've added over 3,500 TV episodes from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, USA, E!, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Discovery Channel, TLC, SyFy, A&E, History, and PBS.

We value you as a member, and we are committed to making Netflix the best place to get your movies & TV shows.

Respectfully,

The Netflix Team

Now here is where I think Netflix just did something exceptionally smart (and I assume they understand that it is smart)  Netflix was going to move their DVD distribution business to a different brand, complete with its own website and presumably its own operations team, distribution team, etc.   That’s on of the reasons to hike the price is to cover the cost of both operations.  With this decision Netflix maintains brand loyalty and broadens scope of brand recognition while at the same time consolidating online operating costs to a single site.  Genius!  This a perfect example of how a company may benefit from a more cloud based operating model.  In this example the business resources can be allocated as services to customers from a single online portal and provide maximum level of service to the customer, maximum insight to the company, and maximize the utilization of the companies resources.