MSN Music Is Tone Deaf

Here's one definition of a loyal Microsoft customer: somebody who continually purchased tunes from MSN Music. They bought into the Microsoft lifestyle, with a Media Center PC, Zen media player and rights-protected tunes from MSN Music. Trust me, that's loyalty.

Oh, you're into Macs and never heard of MSN Music? The beta service launched in September 2004 in response to iTunes. Rather than use a software client, Microsoft chose a service served up in a Web browser. Microsoft also chose different DRM architecture that relied on a software key. While in theory, MSN Music authorized PCs, as iTunes does, the rights were enabled song by song. I experienced ongoing rights management and DRM-related PC-to-device sync problems while testing the service.

But Microsoft cut short MSN Music's life as a real music store. In November 2006, the company launched the Zune music player (yes, the one in brown) and supporting Zune Marketplace. The new service's DRM was incompatible with Microsoft's previous rights-management technologies. Microsoft abandoned its Windows Media "PlaysForSure" DRM strategy, hundreds of PlaysForSure customers and its own MSN Music service. But Microsoft at least did right by continuing to support previously purchased DRM content.

Today, I got a Dear John letter from MSN Music. Microsoft is closing down its rights-management servers, which will hang out to dry all those loyal customers after Aug. 31. Technically, the rights keys for the music never expire. But there are gotchas:

• Customers won't be able to reauthorize rights for PCs. So when that new PC comes along, out goes the music. It won't play.
• All songs must be played on all PCs to be authorized before the cut-off date.
• If rights keys are lost, stolen or transferred, the music won't be playable.

I hope Apple has more sense than to treat its iTunes customers like this. MSN Music store's demise demonstrates all that's wrong with DRM: It's anti-customer. Apple CEO Steve Jobs was right to call for the end of DRM.

Microsoft could have made this situation a customer service win, as I suspect Apple would have. Microsoft could have issued credits for Zune Marketplace to existing MSN Music customers: Reward loyalty by replacing their libraries. I don't think there were that many MSN Music customers. What's a few hundred thousand dollars or couple million bucks to Microsoft? Goodwill money is marketing dollars at work. Microsoft could also have benefited from turning some of those customers to Zune Marketplace.

Instead, Microsoft has people like me blogging about how bad the customer service is. How little regard Microsoft has for its most loyal customers.

So, Apple, please learn from Microsoft's mistakes. Good customer service—the stuff that hurts—builds loyalty and brand affinity. Here's an idea for Apple: Ask people who received that MSN Music Dear John e-mail to send in a copy from the original e-mail address to receive free iTunes credits. I'll absolve myself, as it's a conflict of interest. Why shouldn't Microsoft's customer loss not be Apple's iTunes gain?

Posted by Joe Wilcox on April 22, 2008 8:23 PM