Proper customer communication is essential for service providers. In the era of advanced technologies and evolved payment models such as subscription billing practices, business needs to interact and communicate with customers with precise and accurate information. Read to know how truth and channels affect customer communications and subscription billing.

1. 1
How Truth and
Channels Affect
Customer
Communications
and Subscription
Billing
© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.

2. 2
How Truth and Channels Affect Customer
Communications and Subscription Billing
© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.
Customers have always expected honesty from their service providers. One could even
argue that advances in technology and evolved payment models – such as subscription
billing practices – have made consumers even more critical of the businesses they
interact with. Customer service, value and ease of use remain their highest priorities.
To see this point illustrated in the real world, one only has to look at the history of Tidal.
This streaming music platform, owned by rapper and music mogul Shawn Carter, has
been plagued with negative media attention since its beginnings. Most recently, Yahoo
Finance reported a Chicago law firm filed a class-action lawsuit against Tidal, Carter –
more commonly known as Jay-Z – and rapper Kanye West.
Promising value
The $5 million lawsuit, filed by Edelson PC on behalf of Justin Baker-Rhett, claims Tidal,
Carter and West lied about the service's exclusive value in order to obtain new
subscribers under false pretenses. On Feb. 14, 2016, West released his latest album,
'The Life of Pablo,' exclusively on Tidal. He made several public statements – most
famously on Twitter – claiming the album would never be released in stores or on any
other platform. These proclamations proved to be untrue – West released 'The Life of
Pablo' on Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud and Google Play on April 1.

3. 3© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.
A lawsuit claims Tidal misled its subscribers.

4. 4© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.
Yahoo Finance obtained official documents from the lawsuit that claim neither West nor
S. Carter Enterprises – Carter's holding company – ever intended for the album to
remain exclusively on Tidal.
"To the contrary, they – knowing that Tidal was in trouble but not wanting to invest their
own money to save the company – chose to fraudulently induce millions of American
consumers into paying for Tidal's rescue," the document states.
Baker-Rhett believes this turn of events ultimately means the music service obtained
members' personal and payment information illegally. He invited other Tidal members to
join his lawsuit and wants the company to delete their data and stop charging them for
the service.
"This lawsuit
emphasizes the
importance of
clear and
accurate
customer
communication."
Truth and means in customer communication
This lawsuit emphasizes the importance of clear and accurate
customer communication. Businesses operating on
a subscription billing model need customers that trust them,
otherwise they won't commit to recurring payments.
At the same time, West's actions hint at the numerous ways
and channels customers receive information from their service
providers, whether or not these means are intended by the
business.

5. 5© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.
West made his statements regarding the album's exclusive nature on a popular social
media platform. Despite the fact that Twitter made its rise as a casual service and is
often viewed as a less professional channel than email, the site has become serious
enough that statements made on it can be held against a public figure. It's reasonable to
believe West's Twitter statements truly applied to Tidal and his album and weren't just
off-hand comments, Baker-Rhett claimed. Only the lawsuit itself will confirm the validity
of this statement, but it does indicate the manner in which consumers expect to interact
with a business.
No matter where a company makes a statement – on Twitter, through email, as a press
release or otherwise – customers expect it to be true. They also expect businesses to
interact with them across a multitude of channels. Gone are the days of receiving
information only through the mail – consumers expect to find a business anywhere and
everywhere. In marketing, this concept is called a multichannel or omnichannel
approach. It means providing consumers with an accurate consistent experience no
matter how they choose to interact with a business.

6. 6© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.
About the Author: Bryta Schulz
Bryta joined Vindicia in 2013 and serves as Senior Vice
President of Marketing. She is responsible for building brand
awareness, creating go-to-market strategy and promotion, and
driving growth. With over a decade of executive level marketing,
product management and PR experience, Bryta has led
marketing teams in enterprise technology and SaaS companies.
Her experience includes heading product marketing at GoGrid,
PGP, RSA and Symantec and business development and
product management positions at Xcert, Thales, and
Persistence Software. Bryta holds a MA in Translation from the
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and an MBA from the
University of Reutlingen.
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© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.