Lewis CaliburnSonos has announced seven new commitments resulting from an internal review of its app release in May.
“Our priority since its release has been – and continues to be – fixing the app. There were missteps, and we first went deep to understand how we got here, and then moved to convert those learnings into action,” says Sonos CEO Patrick Spence. “We are committed to making changes to get us back to being the brand people love by offering the best audio system for the home and beyond. We must always do right by our customers, and I am confident that, with these commitments, we will.”
Addressing the root causes of the problems with the app release, and regaining the trust of its customers, Sonos says it is committed to establishing ambitious quality benchmarks at the outset of product development, which it states it will not launch before meeting these criteria.
“We will also enhance the tools necessary to measure the quality of the experience actually being delivered to customers to ensure that we maintain the standards our customers expect,” says Sonos.
The brand also promises to increase the stringency of its pre-launch testing phases.
“Our beta testing program will include more types of customers and more diverse setups for a longer testing period. This will allow us to find, diagnose and solve customer concerns more quickly before going to market,” says Sonos.
Sonos will also “demonstrate humility when introducing changes”. In contrast to the all-at-once automated app release Sonos issued in May, any major change to the Sonos app will be released gradually, allowing customers to adjust and provide feedback before it becomes the default. For new features smaller in scope, Sonos will introduce an opt-in experimental features option in the app for customers who would like to participate in testing them.
Sonos will also appoint a Quality Ombudsperson. “This new role will ensure our employees have a clear path to escalate any concerns in terms of quality and customer experience,” says Sonos. “This person will be consulted by executive leadership throughout the development process and before any product launches. In this role, the ombudsperson will guarantee transparency and publish a report to management and employees twice per year, and will present regularly to the Sonos board of directors.”
Sonos is also committing to the following to begin to regain the trust of its customers:
Sonos will extend the manufacturer’s warranty by one year for all home theatre and plug-in speaker products currently under warranty, it will improve the app experience with regular software upgrades and will roll out updated mobile software versions every 2-4 weeks to optimise and enhance the software experience, even once this issue is resolved.
To ensure Sonos never loses sight of the voice of the customer, a board will provide feedback and insights from a customer perspective to help shape and improve the software and products before they are launched.
Many of these initiatives are already underway and others will be implemented through the remainder of the year. To demonstrate the significance of these commitments to the company, no member of the Executive Leadership Team will accept any annual bonus payout for the October 2024 – September 2025 fiscal year unless the company succeeds in improving the quality of the app experience and rebuilding customer trust.
Since the launch of the new app in May, the Sonos team has been working diligently to release new software updates approximately every two weeks, and rapidly roll out new features and meaningful improvements and fixes. More than 80% of the app’s missing features have been reintroduced and the company expects to have almost 100% restored in the coming weeks. The reliability and speed of the app has improved with each release.
“We’ve made good progress on addressing many of the software issues, and these new commitments will drive us to emerge from this period with an even stronger commitment to quality,” says Patrick.