It’s been a disastrous few months for the company. In an effort to gain user loyalty, the company has put in place a plan that includes several new commitments.
“Our priority since release has been – and continues to be – improving the operating system. There were mistakes, and we first dug deep to understand how we got here, and then we moved to turn that learning into action,” Sonos CEO Patrick Spence. “We are committed to making changes to return to being the brand people love by offering the best audio experience for the home and beyond.”
There are two pillars on which Sonos’ latest program is based: addressing the root causes of the app’s problems (it was not fully optimized and lacking critical features) and gaining user loyalty. For the first time, Sonos promises an “unwavering focus on the customer experience.” That unrealistic commitment involves deciding on “ambitious quality benchmarks” early in the product development cycle and not releasing products before those standards are met.
The company will appoint a qualified ombudsman, who will be the point of contact for staff with quality and customer experience concerns. Sonos leadership will consult with this person during the development process and before any product release. The ombudsperson will submit a half-yearly report to management and employees alike.
Next, Sonos plans to make its testing processes more robust, such as opening up its beta testing program to more types of users and different types of setups. Test times will be longer as well. As such, Sonos thinks this will help it address user concerns more quickly.
In addition, Sonos has promised to roll out major changes to its app gradually. That way, users can provide feedback and allow the company to make changes before a critical update becomes automatic for everyone. As for features with a narrower scope, there will be a toggle in the app for those who want to try them out experimentally.
When it comes to winning back consumer trust, Sonos makes three promises. First, as a courtesy, Sonos extends the manufacturer’s warranty on all home speaker products (home theater gear and built-in speakers) that are still under warranty. The company promised to continue releasing app updates every two to four weeks to “enhance and improve the software experience.”
Finally, Sonos will set up a customer advisory board. This will give the company “feedback and insights from the customer’s perspective to help shape and improve our software and products before they are launched.”
The company plans to implement all of these changes by the end of the year, although some of them are already in place. Sonos also notes that, unless it can rebuild trust with users and improve the “quality of the app experience,” no member of the senior leadership team will receive an annual bonus for the fiscal year that began today. However, the company did not define the parameters for meeting those goals.
The company launched its new lineup in May in preparation for the release of the Sonos Ace, its first set of headphones. However, Sonos has accelerated the release of the redesigned app. It was buggy and lacked several important and basic features, such as being able to adjust alarms (it was possible, but cumbersome, to do that in the desktop app).
The company has spent several months trying to fix these problems, which it says will cost between $20 million and $30 million to fix. Problems have made Sonos. And .
Sonos says it still has and expects to return nearly 100 percent in the coming weeks. It says “the reliability and speed of the application have improved with each release.”