Why is Spotify Android support so bad?

[SteveBrammer]

Like the subject says... Why is Spotify Android support so bad?

By that I don't mean the Android application but actual support here in the community (some might argue the app is also bad, but that's a whole different discussion).

Lets look at some statistics from the two pinned threads in the Android forum...

"Official" new application release missing feature..

This thread was started on 2012-04-19 and has 45 pages, 446 replies, 342 kudos points and 16295 views.

Out of this there are just 7 responses from Spotify and perhaps the only reply ever by one of the Android delvelopment team. On 2012-06-12 ponjoh said landscape mode is coming, he couldn't give a specific date, but he said it was high priority.

Trouble with the latest release? Let us know.

This thread was started on 2012-06-21 by Spotify community manager PerBonomi who asked for feedback on problems with the latest Android release. The thread has 11 pages, 109 replies, 49 kudos points, 2573 views. Apart from the original post, there have been only 4 posts by Spotify employees, 2 basically saying "Thanks for the feedback, but we can't tell you if, what or when anything will be fixed", 1 sarcastic reply and 1 suggested workaround.

Now, I don't know about you, but to me these statustics don't look too good and show a very one sided conversation going on here. We, the paying users of the Spotify Android application, are very engaged as can be seen by the 16295 views on the first thread above. We ask lots of questions, we make lots of suggestions and we report bugs that we find and we make known the features that we think are lacking and would like to see. What do we get in return? Not much is the simple answer. Hardly any interaction from Spotify employees, and where there is interaction there is an almost complete lack of any useful information. The youngest thread above is almost 1 month old, more than enough time to give use some more useful information and not just thanking us for the feedback.

All we want to know is that you are listening to us and that something is actually happening. How hard is that? We don't need to know exact release dates we just want to know what's going on. Right now all we see is all of our comments, suggestions and bug reports falling into a blackhole. We don't know if anything we say is being read by anyone other than support staff that aren't responsible for, and don't have much influence on the actual product. Are the Android developer(s) (I hope to god there really is more than 1) and the Product Manager actually reading these threads? We don't know because you don't tell us!

It would be really good if the Android developers took part in the community here, but even this is not essential as long as there is a clear communicaton path from Customers->Support->Development and then back again Development->Support->Customers.

All we want is some basic common courtesy, answers to our questions, and not being ignored.

p.s. It would nice if someone from Spotify could respond to my other post here (it's been up for more than 24 hours now, has anyone from Spotify even looked at it? Do you have any response? Did I find a bug? Is this just a one off? What do the files "offline", "offline.bnk" and "offline.bnk.tmp" do?...

Latest release stuck offline problem and solution ...

[licenced]

If I could give you more Kudos I would. That's basically what I've said plenty of times already - Spotify is an inherently online company and customers just want some communication. It's fair enough trying to keep new features a secret so that they make the biggest media splash possible when they land, but general feedback and communication should be key.

One day they'll learn, I just hope it's not too late by then and a younger competitor that has an actual communication plan and a half-way decent product hasn't overtaken them already

[onkelberry]

Greetings,

I totally agree with this post, would also provide more kudo's if possible. 

I have had nothing but good experiences with spotify earlier, and the money is little issue, I'd pay extensive amounts for something as long as it really works. Ive had many issues the last 2 months, and at last I took the time to check in with support by mail. They mainly replied "Sorry, we dont support your phone". (Samsung Galaxy Xcover)

It does however give a positive if you try to check if your phone is supported.

My first solution was to buy a second account for my girlfriend and use that account as backup, but it failed to work aswell, so cancelled that. Now, Ive got a second phone, and keep paying a separate phone account for it in order to run my spotify.

Guess I'll be switching from Spotify as soon as I can get another similar product... 😞

Seems sad, many of my colleagues at work have already quit their accounts, and Ive had mine for several years on premium.

[David]

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@onkelberry wrote:

 They mainly replied "Sorry, we dont support your phone". (Samsung Galaxy Xcover)

It does however give a positive if you try to check if your phone is supported.

---

Hello,

I couldn't seem to find that phone on our supported list. Where did you see it listed as supported?

[onkelberry]

It's not in the supported list, but, if you either use the service where they send you a link or do as instructed step by step on

https://www.spotify.com/se/mobile/overview/

it replies:

"Bingo! Your Android 2.1+ is compatible with Spotify Mobile!"

it does however not say anything about there being a list further down the rabbithole about specific phones not being supported.

[personanongrata]

this is so interesting -- see, even in this thread wihch is intended to call out spotify's horrible support (which it does well), just look at what the only response from a spotify rep is -- discussion over whether a particular android device is supported or not.  btw, it seems that when there is a problem with just about any device (and there is), that device is suddenly declared "unsupported."

to the person who said "someday they'll learn..."  i beg to differ.  for one, there are far too many hanger-ons who continue to pay and pray.  spotify knows this.  what have you left to hope for?  for two, there is a robust community of volunteers here fulfulling the role of QA/tech support.  spotify laughs all the way to the bank about this.  for three, there is no competition -- all the other subscription services have horrible android apps.  i've tried them all now.  spotify sure also knows this.  for four, spotify *must* be making enough revenue elsewhere to support their service without giving two sh!ts about its android users.  you can argue this all you want, but the proof is in the pudding.

as long as people continue to pay and complain, spotify knows you're not going anywhere.  when these forums start to go silent, may then spotify will get concerned.

[licenced]

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@personanongrata wrote:

this is so interesting -- see, even in this thread wihch is intended to call out spotify's horrible support (which it does well), just look at what the only response from a spotify rep is -- discussion over whether a particular android device is supported or not.  btw, it seems that when there is a problem with just about any device (and there is), that device is suddenly declared "unsupported."

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Yep, especially when that list of 'supported' phones is so horribly out of date - it pre-dates the latest rewrite of the Android app and should now be completely removed as Spotify should be claiming (and trying) to support any Android 2.3+ device. I don't know why Spotify staff still quote that list - except of course as an easy get out of having to actually offer any support

[user-removed]

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@David wrote:

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@onkelberry wrote:

 They mainly replied "Sorry, we dont support your phone". (Samsung Galaxy Xcover)

It does however give a positive if you try to check if your phone is supported.

---

Hello,

I couldn't seem to find that phone on our supported list. Where did you see it listed as supported?

---

User tested it and it worked?

[SteveBrammer]

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@David wrote:

---

@onkelberry wrote:

 They mainly replied "Sorry, we dont support your phone". (Samsung Galaxy Xcover)

It does however give a positive if you try to check if your phone is supported.

---

Hello,

I couldn't seem to find that phone on our supported list. Where did you see it listed as supported?

---

You mean the supported list that doesn't include any phones running Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich?

Are you really trying to use that old and out of date list (that no one has attempted to update even after the new Android client has been released for more than a month) as an excuse for why onkelberry's phone does not work?

You really are grasping at straws aren't you? Anything to put the blame back onto the paying end user for stupidly not having a phone that is not on your list, instead of actually trying to fix the problem.

[SteveBrammer]

Ho hum, almost 2 weeks since my original post and not a single relevant comment from anyone from Spotify.

I guess it's to be expected. I'm actually starting to feel quite sorry for the poor support reps at Spotify. They are on the front line trying to help the paying customers of a product that obviously has a lot of problems. They are led by a management that appears to have no idea how to prioritise those problems and are not helped at all by a development team that tells them absolutely nothing about the status of current problems or future plans. I have to admit I wouldn't like to be in their shoes.

[David]

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SteveBrammer wrote:

You mean the supported list that doesn't include any phones running Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich?

Are you really trying to use that old and out of date list (that no one has attempted to update even after the new Android client has been released for more than a month) as an excuse for why onkelberry's phone does not work?

You really are grasping at straws aren't you? Anything to put the blame back onto the paying end user for stupidly not having a phone that is not on your list, instead of actually trying to fix the problem.

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* Yes, that list. 

* I was asking where the user found the message saying the device was supported. I don't seem to remember posting about that device not working. 

* I couldn't find any straws in the office. 

[licenced]

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David wrote:

* I was asking where the user found the message saying the device was supported. I don't seem to remember posting about that device not working. 

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If you surf to m.spotify.com from pretty much ANY Android device you get a page that states:

"Installing Spotify Mobile

Bingo! Your Android 2.1+ is compatible with Spotify Mobile..."

This has been true since before the new app was released.

EDIT: In addition, if you go to the Google Play site from a desktop web browser and look at the page for Spotify (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotify.mobile.android.ui) there is a message that tells you which of your devices are compatible with the app - again this seems to be stating compatibility for any 2.x+ device.

For example, I have a Nexus 7 and a One X, neither of which are on the horibly out of date supported devices list, yet Play cheerfully tells me "This app is compatible with all of your devices." and allows me to initiate the download from there directly.

I've said it before, but Play allows any developer to control which devices are supported and will not let users download an app onto their devices if the developer has blocked it. If Spotify want to limit device support capability then Play gives Spotify that control. Allowing me to download the app from Play to my Nexus 7 implicitly states your support for Jelly Bean!!!

[CrazyEddieNL]

This is really hillairious, promoting a new Adroid app that should be compatible with ICS while there are no supported devices with Adroid ICS!

But I totaly agree with Steve, I can't understand it eighter.

And David, with making a app for Adroid it's not about making an App for devices but for a platform / OS system. Ok you can hide about facts that there are no problems with the 'supported devices' (I doubt that fact), but i think that you are blind for overseeing the big picture with a lot of other Android devices / users!

And those other users (see Licenced comment!, since all Adroid users from ver2.1 are compatible by Google Play) have all the reason to complain and get supported as well!

Keep the costumer satisfied!

[Liam]

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@licenced wrote:
If I could give you more Kudos I would. That's basically what I've said plenty of times already - Spotify is an inherently online company and customers just want some communication. It's fair enough trying to keep new features a secret so that they make the biggest media splash possible when they land, but general feedback and communication should be key.

One day they'll learn, I just hope it's not too late by then and a younger competitor that has an actual communication plan and a half-way decent product hasn't overtaken them already

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Cant you manually adjust the kudos count? I'm sure it's possible 😉

Also,

Agree. People need to learn to support people!

[Goodman]

I'll be dedicating a lot of my time to this forum for a while. I've also forwarded your helpful "Latest release stuck offline problem and solution (sort of)" link to  some folks here, in case some of the info can help future releases. Thanks for that 🙂