The other day I left Spotify. I deleted the app and asked them to remove all my personal information. Here's why.I had been with Spotify for a long time, perhaps a decade. Yea I'm that old. I was working in Digital when it first launched and it was the best thing ever. I was a premium customer for some time, I cannot say exactly how long. Left in 2014 some time.I reconnected with the app a year ago and over the last months had been using it daily. In the context of lockdown and isolation, I experience the Spotiy business model as aggressive and coercive. As a free user I was berated with abrasive and at times oppressive advertising - sometimes the same ad three times in a row - often for the service Premium. This happens every fifteen to twenty minutes. I would go so far this is detrimental to mental health. It is purely designed to make the listening experience as uncomfortable as possible to coerce a purchase back to Premium. What kind of a way is that to treat members of your community? This is the aggressive nature of the business model. They offer three months free to new customers but a customer who has been loyal and loved the product gets this aggressive treatment. So I give in, I try and make a purchase, but I cannot do it within the app. The pages I visit online are returning server errors... and a comedy of other failures. All the while, I have Amazon Music there willing to offer me three months free, but I still love the product... So I raised my displeasure with the advertising, the frankly garbled purchase funnel and subsequent superficial customer experience, I received an email saying 'thank you, we have informed our ad teams' as if I am making this complaint to do your user experience testing for Spotify. The response was rapid but my needs were totally ignored. I am not here to report the failing of the Spotify UX strategy; I am expressing my needs which they have deemed less important than informing their ad teams of their failure. I have come out of the experience feeling like my business and decade long relationship with the app means nothing. Get this: after a trial period with Amazon music, their product is superior and they offer a genuinely customer centric experience. The things I love about Spotify are there and better in many cases. They have features way beyond Spotify and even though I have been a customer with Amazon since 2004, they deem my ongoing trust and commitment as enough to give me three months free.Spotify offer a box ticking customer experience, I was a response time to be met, not someone with genuine needs. Their 'listening' processes and systems are more important than hearing what is being said. The only saving grace from one star bad rating is the product still has some redeeming features but the aggressive business model and lack of humanising customer experience render the product unusable. Look elsewhere - just because Spotify were first it doesn't mean they're still the best.
