If you ran Blockbuster What would you Do?

[Blockbusterstore482]

So, I get on here and read for hours seaching for ideas from both customers and employees. Granted I have to hear a lot of BS and lots of funny stuff, but there have been some great points brought up here. So just for this post, throw the rules out the window.

1. If you ran blockbuster and could make ALL the rules and changes what 4 things would you do?

Lets see how vocal you get.

[ClutztomerControl]

Reinstate late fees and offer Dollar per day rentals(all movie rentals new or old or blu-ray). A RedBox sort of rental pricing structure. Brick and Mortar stores can offer a wider selection and more copy depth than a RedBox. You will get plenty of customers back in your stores.... everyone is on a budget these days.


Make rewards free. Everyone else has free rewards programs. Make it more worth wild. Make it so the customer can earn points from purchases. Kind of like Best Buy... but with the standard Blockbuster Rewards(earn free rentals, bsi coupons etc.) still in tact. Loyalty Programs are to gain Loyal customers right? Well it only stands to reason that if every member is a rewards member then they will come back to reap those rewards... late fees are your bread and butter here again.

Yeah, bringing late fees back will be a bitch... but I think it would pay off.




Keep it cheap. Make your money off late fees.


You have to have Competitive Prices... if you want to survive.




Just my opinion.

[Flantanella]

Originally Posted by ClutztomerControl

Reinstate late fees and offer Dollar per day rentals(all movie rentals new or old or blu-ray). A RedBox sort of rental pricing structure. Brick and Mortar stores can offer a wider selection and more copy depth than a RedBox. You will get plenty of customers back in your stores.... everyone is on a budget these days.


Make rewards free. Everyone else has free rewards programs. Make it more worth wild. Make it so the customer can earn points from purchases. Kind of like Best Buy... but with the standard Blockbuster Rewards(earn free rentals, bsi coupons etc.) still in tact. Loyalty Programs are to gain Loyal customers right? Well it only stands to reason that if every member is a rewards member then they will come back to reap those rewards... late fees are your bread and butter here again.

Yeah, bringing late fees back will be a bitch... but I think it would pay off.




Keep it cheap. Make your money off late fees.


You have to have Competitive Prices... if you want to survive.




Just my opinion.

If only the idiots would do this then BBV wouldnt be in so much trouble. If I ran BBV. First things first, cut the pay of DM's and RDO's. They make a shitload and hardly do anything. While the store workers are paid peanuts and get hours cut. I would try to find some way to wither out those that yell and harass the store workers so I could fire their asses.


Reorganize LP to make them go after thieves, external and internal. Not after workers that were "selling too much". Would implement a new security system for all stores, and reward those that catch thieves.


End the fucking sales goal. Most people just want to get in and get out. They dont care about movie bundle or other useless crap. Focus on what makes the company different from the others. Take a look at Radio shack and sears. Still in business and surviving. LEARN FROM THEM, they are still here cause they appeal to a smaller crowd.



Have hours changed according to demand of customers. Workers dont need to be in the store for almost 2 hours till closing time, if only one or two customers comes into the store.

[gmp71270]

1. Take loss prevention seriously. Point the cameras to the hard to see areas where they are cutting stuff open and not all of them at us.

2. Allow customers to special order movies, if we don't have it in a store we can get it for you instead of sending them to someone else who will. And if they do special order make them pay a non-refundable deposit, $5 or so.

3. Instead of lots of little stores in town, have a few large stores with longer hours and a huge selection.

4. You get what you pay for, if Blockbuster wants good help they need to pay for it. Minimum wage plus .10 a year equals lower quality workers.

[Mxnl1090]

Just 4 things?

-Cut out RDOs completely, get rid of the useless DMs and give the remaining ones more stores.

-SMs have total control over the store. They can do whatever works best for their store to make a profit without tedious oversight from DMs and corporate. Somethings can still be mandatory like the MAP but ordering, promotions, sales goals, labor hours should all be set by the SM as if it were her actual store. The ones who are good will be obvious, the dead weight can be cut.

-Commission based sales

-Cheaper rental price, bring back late fees

-Stop spending money on retail that absolutely anyone could tell you won't sell: Xmas pens, framed art, headphones, etc...


I couldn't keep it to just 4

[abhorrent scowl]

Agree with Clutz about the rewards. Don't worry so much about pushing a once a year fee and just give them an incentive to keep coming back and renting. It's been mentioned before, but how about having some aspect of the rewards that benefits people who buy PRP? The idea is to have a program that is mutually beneficial.

I can point out to spots in our store where I would guess 90% of theft occurs. Problem is, if you are trapped at the counter (frequently the case) you can't see them. How about something as simple and low tech as those curved mirrors in the back corners so we can at least keep an eye on those areas?

Focus on specific products. We should rent/sell movies and games. That's it. No books, snuggies, games, bobbleheads, candy toys, electronics, etc. There are other stores that sell that stuff, so let them. If it isn't on a disk, we shouldn't waste space on it.
We can keep candy/popcorn/soda, but just the basics.

And as also mentioned, lose the never-ending sales goals. We can offer exactly one thing that a Netflix/Redbox can't... and that's customer service. Knowing you need to sell X number of passes/presales/whatever makes the relationship with the customer adversarial. How about letting us focus on treating them like people as opposed to cows waiting to be milked? Some like to chit chat, some like to get in and out like a ninja. Let us give them what they (the people who give us the money that keeps us going) want, instead of doing a song and dance for something that, all too often, just winds up cannibalizing revenue (cough cough escape pass cough).

[BUYMECAR]

if i ran blockbuster...

i'd invest in netflix.

[empbal]

I will disagree with pay cuts for DMs. Pay cuts lower productivity because people care less about their jobs. Just chop DMs out of the picture altogether.

Better communication. Something that plagues this company is miscommunication between all levels. By the time information gets down to the store level and sometimes even the CSR level, people have heard 3 or 4 different things. We were opening 2 hours late for 2 weeks because of a miscommunication.

Everything mentioned above: free Rewards, bring back late fees, give SMs more control, angled mirrors along the entire new release wall so we can watch theft, stop giving us singing pens, snuggies, etc.

Stop being so cheap with supplies:

- We're so low on yellow locks that we had to tape all of our PRP (can't wait for the theft to start happening) and we still have ~500 rentals unlocked sitting on a cart. Labor is increased because when a customer is looking for a movie, we have to double check the cart as well as all returns and move movies off/on the cart when we need to use it for pulls. Customers walk out of the store with nothing because a movie they are looking for is not in (and hey.. maybe they won't even bother coming back). It's like this at most stores in my district.

- Our membership card printer has not worked in a year, and neither have the ones at 4 other stores in our district. Don't you think hand-written cards are extremely unprofessional?

- We only have 2 working scanners. Inventory is a blast.

[libra]

We can do special orders. Someone said we can't. Call store support, one of the options when you call there is press 1 for this 2 for that... one of them is "to place a customer special order." They send it with your regular pool point so you have to be looking for it. It takes a couple weeks. But also we are soon somehow going to be able to rent movies for customers from the online business. The customer won't need an online account & the store will reap the rental fee. The rental will arrive at their house. It was in last weeks message of the week.


And the person who needs locks, a card printer & scanners. Are there any closing stores that you know of? That is a really easy way to get the things you need. Unfortunately as we all know stores are closing left & right. You could ask for DM what stores are closing in your region if you aren't sure. Then see what kind of stuff they might be willing to give you or swap with you. For example I needed a computer monitor. The closing store said they would take my broken one & it wouldn't be a problem at all. It worked out well, I got a nice one in return. Scanners are a computer support issue, you should be able to send your broken ones in for repairs or refurbished scanners.

Just trying to be helpful.

Oh and I agree about lowering the prices & bringing back late fees. I know some markets have been testing that for a year now. Seems like they would have come to a conclusion by now. I hate charging people 4.99 a movie. If I was a paying customer I would go elsewhere. And yes, rewards should be free. It ends up balancing out after 2 free rentals... so who cares. And points for purchases would be lovely. If it was 5 paid rentals OR PURCHASES gets you a free rental; I would see a lot of excited people.

[empbal]

Originally Posted by libra

And the person who needs locks, a card printer & scanners. Are there any closing stores that you know of? That is a really easy way to get the things you need. Unfortunately as we all know stores are closing left & right. You could ask for DM what stores are closing in your region if you aren't sure. Then see what kind of stuff they might be willing to give you or swap with you. For example I needed a computer monitor. The closing store said they would take my broken one & it wouldn't be a problem at all. It worked out well, I got a nice one in return. Scanners are a computer support issue, you should be able to send your broken ones in for repairs or refurbished scanners.

Thanks, I appreciate the suggestions. There is a store closing but that was 2 months ago, so I'm sure everything has been vouched for. And if not, my new SM has a problem taking suggestions and ideas unless he comes up with them and he'll make up an excuse as to why we can't do that. He says we can't get new scanners because corporate isn't giving new scanners to any stores.