Alphabetize

[jeffpn]

Re: Alphabetize

You're an IT guy, eh? I've helped plenty of you with other software I've used, and I'm not an IT guy. Ironically, the trouble they had involved networking. Forgive me if your 30 years' IT experience means nothing to me. It doesn't take an IT guy to point out that sorting would be easy. My kids all new their ABCs at 4 years old. Anyone who's ever seen a list on a computer knows the importance of sorting. Claiming to have 30 years experience doesn't make sorting more important. *

* That was the only use of an asterisk I could think of using. I wanted to speak in language you could understand, since I see you and others here like asterisks.

[lujan]

Re: Alphabetize

...I hate calling a CS line and ending up training the rep on their own product. I like being able to call Vudu and speaking to a human, rather quickly, and being able to speak to a native English speaking American...

I have to agree about the customer service. It has been really good with Vudu and being able to speak and understand them in English is a real plus. I think that it's the other parts (engineering, content and especially the studios themselves) that keep improvements from being made or content from being corrected. We better watch out because one of these days, Vudu may decide to outsource these jobs?

[tfisher]

Re: Alphabetize

jeffpn

I can tell you are not an IT guy, I am thinking you are not even a customer of VUDU since you seem to be fighting against the rest of us customers who are trying to bring about change.

I guess you have indirectly answered my question from my last post. You don't have a point to make, for some reason you are just being a jerk. I now know that I can ignore anything posted by you in the future.

[tfisher]

Re: Alphabetize

lujan

You are correct! It's nice to call VUDU and speak to someone here in the US and someone you can understand over the phone. They have been helpful with the one or two issues I've had in the past. But it's the Walmart folks that need help. I have had them even tell me that they have called VUDU and VUDU wont help them when they have problems. I don't understand this since Walmart owns VUDU. I also feel that a couple of my tickets were closed without my questions being both understood and answered (even if the answer is we have considered your request, but we are not going to do it).

The other area where I feel their customer service could improve is with keeping their customers informed with what they are working on. We were told SEVERAL months ago that an app was being worked on for Andriod, but where are they with this? How can we find out and when will it be delivered to their customers? These are valid questions for a customer to ask. These are questions I get asked here and we have to keep our customers informed with our progress.

[jeffpn]

Re: Alphabetize

jeffpn

I can tell you are not an IT guy, I am thinking you are not even a customer of VUDU since you seem to be fighting against the rest of us customers who are trying to bring about change.

I guess you have indirectly answered my question from my last post. You don't have a point to make, for some reason you are just being a jerk. I now know that I can ignore anything posted by you in the future.

Yes, I am a Vudu customer. I don't know why you would assume otherwise.

You made a brilliant deduction that I am not an IT guy, the fact that I stated so myself notwithstanding.

Why do you assume I am not for improving Vudu's service? I would love to see a sort feature added. It would help others out more than it would help me. That's just my altruistic side kicking in. I only have about 15 movies that I've bought on Vudu.

I don't feel the need to explain to Vudu how easy my suggestion/request "should" be to implement, nor do I feel the need to suggest that their future profitability would be increased by taking my advice.

Congratulations on getting through an entire post without getting censored!

[nycomet]

Re: Alphabetize

I wonder why none of the Vudu moderators seem to offer any feedback on our feature requests?

I can't help but wonder if Walmart is considering selling off Vudu to another company. I only say his because there doesn't seem to be much going on as far as adding new features and the D2D conversion library is stagnating.

I would like to SORT my movie collection (I have more than 200 movie files), It would be wonderful to see more D2D titles added, Vudu should offer an option to upgrade our SD files to HDX, I would like to see closed captioning on all movies/TV shows, I would like to be able to create playlists that will automatically play the entire sequence of the titles I put on the playlist, and last but not least, Vudu should establish a rewards system so we can earn points and redeem them for movies files.

But it seems as if nothing is going on to improve Vudu. It's stuck in a holding pattern in which no additions or improvements are being developed. I find this disturbing.

[tfisher]

Re: Alphabetize

nycomet
I do know that they have added some new movies for D2D because I have had some in my collection that were not available for D2D a few months ago that were available a month or so ago.

I think I read that they added closed captioning recently, but I have not checked that out to see if we subtitles or not. I would like to see Spanish substitles added, but not all movies have subtitles in Spanish, French, etc.

Maybe their entire staff is busy working on their Andriod interface and/or other new features. Maybe they have all found new jobs and nothing much is happening in the way of delivering new functionality to the customer. Maybe they are waiting to see what Disney is going to do. Who the heck knows?

[RandomNinjaAtk]

Re: Alphabetize

Response [VUDU Employee Name] via Email 10/23/2012 12:34 PM
Hello [My Name],

I am really really hoping that VUDU can roll out something like this soon. I've been bugging our engineering team for quite a while, and notifying the team each time a customer writes in with this same request. I hope we implement alphabetical sorting of My Movies, or something similar, soon but I don't have a timeline for that.

Best Regards,
[VUDU Employee Name]
VUDU Customer Care
Follow us: blog.vudu.com
www.twitter.com/vudufans
www.facebook.com/vudufans

Customer [My Name] (#######) via CSS Web 10/22/2012 12:13 PM

Are there any future plans for this? This happens to be a very hot topic on the forums and you already have this feature technically implemented but only for browsing for movies. This page specifically: http://www.vudu.com/movies/#browse/

Thanks,
[My Name]

Customer [My Name] (#######) via CSS Web 10/17/2012 07:05 AM
Much needed sorting options for my own movies, Alphabetically, genre, purchase date, release date and etc. It is impossible to navigate large selections to find the title I want to watch via the website or a Vudu enabled player with no sorting options...

Thanks,
[My Name]

So I received a response from my case, I've included my entire case above for everyone to read. Seems like they are indeed passing the suggestions on, I don't know if they read the forum though. I would recommend that everyone at least opens an official support ticket like I did to address the issue. However, I would not open multiple tickets to be respectful. I do think everyone should at least raise the issue through official means so it's on record.

This ticket was originally closed after my first message (categorized it as Site Feedback), so that is why I sent the second message to pry some more information....

[tfisher]

Re: Alphabetize

Thanks for sharing that with us RandomNinjaAtk! That sounds good, but it doesn't sound like they communicate within their own company if their engineers cannot tell the rest of us what they are working on for us and when they plan to deliver.

Actually, what would be COOL is if they would implement sorting and filtering for My Movies, My TV, and My Wish List. If we could sort each by title, by date added to our list, by date available for D2D, or by release date then I think this would also give us the most flexibility.

Think about this...if you could sort your wish list by "date available for D2D" then you would see movies recently made available (most recent to oldest) and any movie not available for D2D would be filtered.

Based on their reply it at least sounds like they still have some sort of development team. That much is at least encouraging. I guess I will enter a new case since I haven't done that in a while.

[jeffpn]

Re: Alphabetize

There are many companies who will not share release dates or schedules with the public. That doesn't mean they don't communicate within their own company. Why would a company publicize a release date, only to hit a snag, and have to push it back? That's just one reason why not to send memos to customers.

[tfisher]

Re: Alphabetize

It's not unheard of for companies to communciate with their customers and provide estimated timelines. Not just in the software industry, and not just in technology or entertainment industries either. If you take your car to have work done on it you want to know when it will be ready for you to pick it up, right? If a mechanic cannot provide this information you probably will not continue using them when most mechanics will tell you when they think your car will be ready.

Sure, "snags" as you call it will happen and target dates are missed. But the important thing is communication and making the customer feel like their requests are being taken seriously...it's all about the customer and making them feel like they are getting service. All IT shops have project plans, schedules, etc. So it's not like this is information that don't have. We are always able to get this type of information from IBM (what they are working on for the next release and their next release date).

The last company I worked at we provided our customers with functionality we were developing and a date we expected each feature to be available. Those dates were usually padded and we normally implemented a week or two early from their perspective. However, there were a few times when we were late and we would let them know when dates were being pushed back so they could make any necessary changes in their plans. But the bottom line was that they felt like they were important to us.

...even Netflix has an email about "upcoming releases", but I don't know that I remember seeing one (I guess I need to go make sure I am signed up to receive that email).

[jeffpn]

Re: Alphabetize

If Vudu took my movies for processing, like a mechanic takes my car to work on it, of course I'd insist on a timeframe. You need a better analogy. When did Apple publicize a release date for the iPhone 5? Or did they? Does Microsoft publish timetables for their patches and security fixes? Or do they just release them when ready? The company I work for doesn't release projected availability of certain services either. It's too easy for the competition to swoop in and offer customers contracts while we are preparing our services for deployment. Like I said, there are a number of reasons why companies don't share information with customers. I find it highly unlikely you will change any company's mind on that decision, but good luck.

[tfisher]

Re: Alphabetize

I didn't even notice that was you posting earlier...here we go again! I don't understand why you continue to make comments that make you sound like you are VUDU's big brother trying to protect them from their customers. Please don't try to explain your personality to us, even if I could understand why some people are jerks I doubt I would really care.

Anyway, I will give you a few more minutes of my time to try to explain what I am talking about here. The mechanic was a good "analogy" of what I am talking about, even though we are not talking about actual car repairs or even buying movies. The analogy is about good customer service. Many years ago our CIO used this same analogy when we started our estimation process and started to give out target dates for all IT projects.

Sharing this information isn't about holding people to all their commitments, it really is about customer service. If they don't already, VUDU must understand that there is more to their business than just movies and they must acknowledge that customers have certain expectations regarding issues surrounding their systems, things like parental controls, the ability to quickly and easily find movies and information about movies, etc.

Here are other examples...we've known a lot about Windows 8 for a while now. Other companies share information with the public or their customers because they realize that people investing in their products and services have to know what direction they are heading in before making a commitment to go with their products and services. Do you know when the iPad 4 will be released by Apple? March 2013! Apple doesn't always give out many details about what functionality will be delivered, but just the fact they they have plans to evolve is often enough. Until today I wasn't even sure VUDU had a development staff, but I still don't know if they work on code or just play on the internet all day.

I doubt any of this will have an impact on VUDU sharing this information with the people who keep them in business and the people who can put them out of business...but I do hope that they will realize that their systems need to continue to evolve if they want to grow. Based on the response that RandomNinjaAtk posted earlier, I have a LITTLE bit of hope that they might be working on enhancements.

[jeffpn]

Re: Alphabetize

So you previously thought that all of Vudu's employees are automatons? I'm glad you changed your mind in that. You still seem to me as someone who thinks that Vudu won't survive without taking your advice.

You've tried convincing me that Vudu must change their philosophy on sharing information with customers. You've failed. Maybe you'll have better luck convincing Vudu. I'll bet you don't.

[tfisher]

Re: Alphabetize

No, I am not as arrogant as you seem to be. WHAT I AM SAYING IS THEY NEED TO LISTEN TO AND COMMUNICATE BETTER WITH THEIR CUSTOMERS. It's about building stronger releationships between the company and the customer. I am not trying to "convince" you of anything. I am trying to figure out how you could think that this forum is all about you. Did I put ANYTHING in my previous postings that was aimed directly at you? Did I say that YOU needed to communicate with VUDU customers better or that YOU should make some much needed enhancements to VUDU's systems? None of this is about you man...so why not just shut the hell up?

It is my relationship with VUDU that I am trying to build on here. Therefore, I could care less if you agree with me on anything I have posted on this forum. These are suggestions I feel they should use to make their releationship stronger with their customers. Sure they are based on MY experience with their product, so what! Last time I checked I am a customer, and based on comments you've made before it sounds like I am a better customer based on the number of movies I have bought and converted to digital. And besides, many other customers seem to agree with some of my suggestions based on what I have read here, and this is why they should be listening.

Companies find they must change their philosophy regarding customer service and customer relations every day. This is nothing new in the business world, so you really should stop thinking that our (the customers) opinions don't matter. They do matter! Netflix use to think that their customer opinions didn't matter and they quickly found out that their customer's opinions DID matter after they lost a very large percentage of their customers.

I work for a Fortune 500 company and we are constantly having to adjust our business practices and make changes based on social media. Social media has really changed the way companies must do business. We have to really keep our eyes on forums and social websites to find out what is being said about our products and our service. People take more advice from social media these days than a company's television commercial.

So while I do not really believe VUDU doesn't care about what we have to say, it is possible that our opinions don't matter to them today. That doesn't mean that customers should just ignore things they don't like. We need to let them know how they can get better and what they can do to get more of our business. If they ignore us, like Netflix did with their customers, then we should find a better service to use and stop using VUDU.

I hope that you can finally understand that these are suggestions from VUDU customers to VUDU. I am sorry if you felt like I was trying to communicate directly to you. And, while my comments are being posted here under my user ID, I assure you that they are supported by many VUDU customers both on this forum and others not even using this forum. My entire family and other people that I have talked to over the past 3 months or so seem to have similar ideas about how their experience with VUDU could be improved on.