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Unread May 6th, 2011, 08:31 PM
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Dear Dish: How To Make Blockbuster Better

Hello Dish! Thanks for buying us and saving us (temporarily, at least)!

If any Dish corporate people have found our humble little website here, hopefully you're researching ways to improve Blockbuster. And it needs a LOT of it. And even with improvements, it still may not survive.

BUT, thinking positively, I wanted to start this thread so that we on the store level can give you honest suggestions for improvement. You will not hear it this honestly from anywhere else. You may have to wade through some negativity here, but it is worth it as there are a lot of good ideas floating around this website.

Last edited by lucky me; May 6th, 2011 at 08:49 PM.
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Unread May 6th, 2011, 08:31 PM
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To start:

* This idea is controversial, but I strongly believe in it: CHANGE THE RENTAL TERMS. We have changed them A LOT in the last few years and customers hate us for it, but we need to do it again, once more, and then be done with it. We must be able to compete with netflix and redbox on our price. At our price point, we will inevitably fail as physical stores as it is. But there is a way out! Make our rental terms the same as a redbox - one price to pay for one day, and the same price for each day after. And, exactly like redbox, we mandate that all customers keep a valid credit card on file (the one they swipe to pay the first day with-just like redbox) (which will reduce bad debt dramatically and decrease customer dissatisfaction as we can point out it's the exact same as a redbox and won't have to deal with arguing with customers over their late fees and balances) that will charge the price each day overnight until it's returned or the buy-it price has been achieved (in which case they will then own the movie, exactly like redbox). It will be MUCH simpler, competitive and lead to much more satisfied customers, or rather, much less DIS-satisfied customers since their will be no more late fees per se and hardly any balances. At first you may think we'd make less money since people could in theory return their movie the next day, but we all know most people keep them longer. And, I guarantee we'd have made a lot more money recently with these terms because we'd have our copies coming back faster to rent out again, which would bring more people in, and it's a happy circle. Now, it doesn't have to be quite as cheap as redbox. It could be, say, $2 a day. People would love that. For only a dollar more than the redbox price they get to browse a much larger selection than redbox and have a higher chance of a movie being in stock (since people will be returning our copies faster and redboxes are often out of the hottest new movies). Plus, it will give people considering some non-Blockbuster/Dish On Demand an incentive to come to our store - it's $3 cheaper than an On Demand title. But the thing is, it's only $2 if they keep it one day. At two days it's $4, at three it's $6, at four it's $8, where as at our current price point at four days it's $5.99 and at three days it's only $4.99, and the profit increases per day over our current terms the longer they keep it out. This change would simplify our terms, make customers happier and increase profit and physical store competitiveness. So, basically, a win-win all around.

* GET ONLINE FREE STREAMING WITH ONLINE MEMBERSHIPS ASAP. I know this won't necessarily help physical stores but it's ridiculous that we don't have this. I know it was a money issue, but Jim Keyes said time and time again we don't need that, who cares about watching old movies? Turns out, a lot of people do. I've heard you want to do this ASAP anyway, but thought I'd say it anyway since it's so obvious and has been for years. If we had that, our online service would be superior to netflix. That is far and away the #1 reason people have told me they have netflix instead of our BB online service.

* Get rid of all this excess paperwork managers have to do. It's a waste of time, labor, money and, well, paper. If you looked into it I think you'd be shocked at how wasteful and useless most of it is. And this is after it's already been cut by about 25% or so over the last few years. But there are companies that are paperless now, and even "paper" companies, most of them don't worry about near the amount of things we are forced to. It really is ridiculous and I think you'd agree.

* Update our computers. They are really pathetic, and I've already heard your president was shocked by our technology (or lack thereof) when he walked into a store. I know this will cost money, but hopefully you will think it's money well spent. We are still running on EIGHTIES decade computer systems. If you want to update our stores, you must start with the computers (although, after that, there's plenty more that needs updating).

* The "Blockbuster Way" is a good idea and should be continued, even possibly updated with Dish's philosophies, and emphasized. It wasn't implemented well at Blockbuster (DMs and RDOs eventually used it to make goals and micro-manage, even though the idea of "The Blockbuster Way" is the opposite - to eliminate silly goals and focus on customer service and giving store managers more freedom in decision-making for their store to increase revenue), but in idea, The Blockbuster Way is a good one.

* Allow us, as managers, to say no to customers. Over the last year or so, they've become insanely intent on never having customer complaints, no matter what. Which is a good idea in theory. But, we are a unique business. Our business model is to rent something and then after it's returned, if there are charges, the customer must pay them afterwards. This leads to A LOT of problems, to say the least. Customers will swear we didn't tell them the terms. Customers will argue all day long. Customer will make up excuses and say how dare we collect the charges because xxxx happened. In short, customers are ALWAYS trying to get out of the charges. And nowadays, because we get in trouble if any complaint goes higher than our store, we just say OK and take them all off. Even very large charges. We lose A LOT of revenue this way. A LOT. I know of no other company where it's so easy to get out of paying what's owed. If we are just allowed to politely say no to a customer, like we used to be able to, that would change. However, if you took my first idea and used it - making everyone keep a valid credit card on file and charging per day every day - this point would be moot and we wouldn't hardly ever have to worry about saying no or taking charges off, because they'd already be taken off automatically every day.

* Completely re-work or simply scrap the "goals" we live by nowadays at Blockbuster. We really are not even supposed to have goals anymore, per "The Blockbuster Way". But as it is, these are now used to make sometimes unrealistic goals and to fire people. This is ridiculous at a video rental store. It didn't used to be that way. There used to not really be any back when Blockbuster made money, and hey, guess what, they still did great even when employees didn't have crazy goals. But they tried to make up with bad business decisions by forcing us to get "goals" that they thought would improve their bottom line when it can't even begin to fix what corporate has broken. It only decreases employee morale and puts much more stress than is needed on employees. I know you may have us selling DISH in our stores and that could come with goals, but I trust you as a profitable, seemingly happy company to implement those goals in a rational way. Unless you leave it to our RDOs and DMs as they are now (see point about RDOs and DMs further below) to implement the goals, then it will be the same as always probably.

* I know we are now allowed raises again, but I hope you can somehow look into making sure everyone gets the proper raises they've deserved over the last three or four years since raises were stopped. Blockbuster has TERRIBLE policy on raises and hiring wages. For some idiotic reason, they'd allow us to hire new people in at whatever I could get approved by the DM, sometimes a much higher rate than someone already there, but I couldn't get raises for some of my best employees. So it's possibly to have a wonderful employee who's been with the company forever making minimum wage while a new hire in the same position is making DOLLARS more per hour. It's really ridiculous, and the DMs are still trying to not give out raises (at least, mine has told me I can't give out any raises anytime soon). Getting everyone on par with what they should be making, or what's fair in regards to others around them, would have a HUGE positive increase on employee morale.
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  #3  
Unread May 6th, 2011, 08:32 PM
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* Please for the love of all that is good, stop with these customer surveys as they are now, or complete re-work the system we're using for them. It's really become insane. On a variety of questions a customer can give us 1-5, but only a 5 counts as a 100 and everything else counts as a 0. On top of that, our stores our now being judged on our survey scores (3 questions in particular), we've even been given "goals" concerning surveys, even though the survey is on the receipt we've had to hand out separate papers to every customer explaining the survey in bigger writing, we've had to call in survey hand-out percentages. If someone gave us all 4s, a good score, it'd count as 0 for us. If someone gave us two 4s and one 5, it'd count as 33% for us, failing, when two 4s and a 5 is a very good score. Even two 5s and a 4 would count as 66%, still failing (!), when two 5s and a 4 is an excellent score. But besides all that, it doesn't even matter because Blockbuster is on this hell-bent mission to get fantastic survey scores even if they're really useless. So, basically we're being told to make sure the customer will give us 5s and let them know they need to give us 5s before they leave. And we're being told in no uncertain terms that we must get all 5s, whatever necessary. This has led a lot of stores to simply have staff and friends do the surveys. It's ridiculous. And honestly, I thought they were doing it before the sale to make themselves look better for the sale, but we're continuing even now that the sale is over and I have no idea why. This crazy survey obsession in Blockbuster corporate needs to stop, especially because they're not even letting it be done truthfully. Sure our survey scores will beat other stores survey scores when we hound customers that they must give us 5s and do the surveys ourselves to ensure 5s, when most other stores just let them be handed out and done as wanted. Blockbuster corporate doesn't want honest feedback from these, they want fake 100s.

* Consider letting us wear appropriate jeans as a norm, as our dress code. I just don't see any reason why a video store employee needs to wear khakis. People want to come to our store to have fun, or at least anticipate having fun with the movie they're picking out. It's a casual thing, it's a casual business. Also, let us wear shorts, period. As it is, the ridiculous policy is that shorts are only allowed during summer, and only at the RDOs discretion. And the RDOs have generally never let us wear shorts. Or made it a "one week" reward for meeting some incredibly high sales goal that maybe one store per district makes.

* Look into a major re-organization of higher-level field employees (RDOs and DMs). Some are good, many are bad and at the least most need re-training. As it is, most are now operating under the motto of "threats, fear and micro-managing". I can't imagine this is how it works at DISH and I'd love for it not to work like that at Blockbuster anymore, either. True story Dish: about a year or so ago, we got a new corporate employee (Doug McHose) who did our Message Of The Weeks for employees in the stores. He quickly started saying on the Message Of The Week that he's heard about RDOs and DMs threatening and instilling fear in employees and that he was going to make sure it stopped. Shortly thereafter, he left the company.

* DO NOT LISTEN TO BLOCKBUSTER CORPORATE'S IDEAS, NO MATTER WHAT, ESPECIALLY JIM KEYES. Please be advised that these are the corporate people that have slowly ran this company into the ground. They will have plenty of excuses as to why it happened and it isn't their fault, but it is their fault. If you listen to them you will be on the same path to destruction these people already had the company on. Now, I'm not saying to necessarily fire them all. I'm sure they can be good for making copies or getting coffee or doing all the repetitive paperwork that needs to be done, but don't trust them with ideas, except for one which I'll get to next.....

*Re-hire Alvie Taylor, who was let go just before the deal with you closed since he was part of "store concepts", in a creative/ideas capacity. He has been an invaluable source of rationality and insight on this board and loves what he does and gives 500% and then some to his job.
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Unread May 6th, 2011, 08:44 PM
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I agree with just about everything you just said. I salute you lucky me. That was well thought out and addressed nearly every point I still have concerns with. I would additionally give SM's with tenure alot more responsibility as to the type and quantity of movie/game titles and product we can order based on store success and SPR.
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Unread May 7th, 2011, 04:12 AM
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And dish wants to fire you for trying to post helpful stuff...fuck dish. And take anything that regards you out of your post
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Even the Devil, which is the main share holder of blockbuster is saying you guys are making me look bad!

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  #6  
Unread May 7th, 2011, 06:35 PM
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Streaming requires deals with studios. Many of whom are very unhappy with Blockbuster. Isn't going to happen overnight, and if it does, Netflix will be too far along.

And get rid of forcing bundles and upgrades? Hahaha. That's how Dish will make their money. Expect to push more, not less.
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Unread May 7th, 2011, 09:24 PM
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Can we please just go back to a simple TNR goal? Make The Day seemed to indicate a return to that way of doing business and then we had Sales Priorities again.

Not every customer wants to buy candy. And if we can sell them PRP or headphones or an Angry Bird plush, isn't that just as well? TNR is TNR is TNR. PRP has a higher margin, anyway.

Maybe make the goal an average check amount, if you don't want to stick to just the MTD TNR number. Which I still don't understand. If you need to hold an SM's hand and tell them what to sell to make the day, they shouldn't be an SM. Real SMs should be able to adapt to daily business and customer needs and hit the TNR in any way possible, not just with a narrow list of "priorities."

Oh. And I love the jeans every day idea. Yes, please. Because, really, have you seen the state of some of the khakis? Jeans would look so much nicer.
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Unread May 8th, 2011, 03:05 AM
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I love how we're required to where khakis because BB wanted a professional look. Meanwhile the carpet has stains that would repulse a CSI crime lab, the roof is caving in, there are "dollar store" type sales posters plastered everywhere, half the lights are burned out and we're using computers from (literally) another century.
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Unread May 8th, 2011, 03:10 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Veruka_Salt View Post
I love how we're required to where khakis because BB wanted a professional look. Meanwhile the carpet has stains that would repulse a CSI crime lab, the roof is caving in, there are "dollar store" type sales posters plastered everywhere, half the lights are burned out and we're using computers from (literally) another century.
Garbage in . Garbage out.
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Even the Devil, which is the main share holder of blockbuster is saying you guys are making me look bad!

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  #10  
Unread May 8th, 2011, 06:24 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Veruka_Salt View Post
I love how we're required to where khakis because BB wanted a professional look. Meanwhile the carpet has stains that would repulse a CSI crime lab, the roof is caving in, there are "dollar store" type sales posters plastered everywhere, half the lights are burned out and we're using computers from (literally) another century.
You are vacuuming that expensive carpet every night though, right? Would want it to be dirty after the six customers came in.
 

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