Sonos Staff

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Our New Quality and Customer Experience Commitments

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Hi all,

We’ve been sharing app updates with you all over the last several months, and today we wanted to share commitments that we are announcing following our internal review of the app release in May of this year. In addition to all we have been doing to get you back to enjoying your Sonos products, these commitments will drive us to emerge from this with an even stronger commitment to quality. You can read highlights of the commitments below, and read more here: www.sonos.com/commitments.

To address the root causes of the problems of the app release, we commit to:

Unwavering focus on the customer experience. To deliver the highest level of customer experience, we will always establish ambitious quality benchmarks at the start of product development. We will not launch products until they meet these criteria. We will also enhance the tools needed to measure and maintain the standards our customers expect.
Increase the stringency of our pre-launch testing phases. Our beta testing program will include a broader range of customers and more diverse setups, helping us diagnose and resolve issues faster before going to market.
Demonstrate humility when introducing changes. In contrast to the all-at-once automated app release we 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, we will introduce an opt-in experimental features option in the app for customers who would like to participate in testing them.
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. 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.

In addition, we are also committing to the following to begin to regain your trust:

Extend our home speaker warranties. To reflect our strong belief in the quality of our products, we will extend the manufacturer’s warranty by an additional year for all home theater and plug-in speaker products currently under warranty.
Relentlessly improve the app experience with regular software upgrades. We will continue to roll out updated mobile software versions every 2-4 weeks to optimize and enhance the app experience, even after the current issues are fully resolved.
Establish a Customer Advisory Board. We will form a Customer Advisory Board to ensure we never lose sight of our customers' voices. This board will provide feedback and insights from a customer perspective to help shape and improve our software and products before they are launched.

As a demonstration of the significance of these commitments, the Sonos Executive Leadership Team will not 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.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Thanks for all of your support and patience the last several months - we’re excited to move forward and get you back to enjoying the quality that Sonos is known for.

Your Sonos team.

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M

Matt431

Lyricist III

I hope I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but at this point I’ve given up on Sonos ever fixing the absolute mess they’ve created.

5 months to come up with the list of corporate platitudes above? This does not inspire hope.

All I want is to be able to play my own music collection through the expensive speakers Sonos sold me. And then broke.

A

Alexsr71

Trending Lyricist I

What a * crock. Just stop. Just stop with the bull *. Everyone is so tired of it now. FFS

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

A

Ad4m5ki

Trending Lyricist I

I hope I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but at this point I’ve given up on Sonos ever fixing the absolute mess they’ve created.

5 months to come up with the list of corporate platitudes above? This does not inspire hope.

All I want is to be able to play my own music collection through the expensive speakers Sonos sold me. And then broke.

This.

A

Ancient Billy

Lyricist I

I haven’t got much longer on this earth so I really would like fast answers as to how I can play music from my iMac on my silent Sonos speakers.

Can I suggest that in future you leave a working app in situ and introduce new changes in beta form alongside.

We oldies could then be saved a huge amount of frustration and listen to our favourite music whilst the youngsters exploit the new facilities and find the bugs for the rest of us!

U

Uscvega

Lyricist II

please stop talking and digging deeper in a hole that was as visible as the ocean, and you decided to test walking on water….

7 bullet points above, in order -

1-3 : duh. You are a product company and you don’t do this???

4: that should be your c-suite. Are you saying all they care about is pushing bad products and forcing an ego centric “swallow what I give you, you’ll like it mentality”?

5: really, that is it. Pitiful. How about you take the warranty, and just give us back the old app. Retire, take the golden parachute, and start over. Won’t pay for a frustrating summer of music and going back to using a more reliable Bluetooth boom box.

6: duh, again

7: if that doesn’t include, c-level shake up recommendations, then what will that do. Don’t you have a board for that. What about your product managers, etc

bottom line - a lot of “rookie” in that update statement. A bunch of hot air and stuff that should have been already baked in to a customer centric product company. Keep trying…

just pool those bonuses for the buy your equipment back fund… don’t bother worrying if those executives stay or leave. They should be gone by now anyway. So just another empty promise.

L

LoveSonosWhenItWorks

Trending Lyricist I

Hi all,

We’ve been sharing app updates with you all over the last several months, and today we wanted to share commitments that we are announcing following our internal review of the app release in May of this year. In addition to all we have been doing to get you back to enjoying your Sonos products, these commitments will drive us to emerge from this with an even stronger commitment to quality. You can read highlights of the commitments below, and read more here: www.sonos.com/commitments.

To address the root causes of the problems of the app release, we commit to:

Unwavering focus on the customer experience. To deliver the highest level of customer experience, we will always establish ambitious quality benchmarks at the start of product development. We will not launch products until they meet these criteria. We will also enhance the tools needed to measure and maintain the standards our customers expect.
Increase the stringency of our pre-launch testing phases. Our beta testing program will include a broader range of customers and more diverse setups, helping us diagnose and resolve issues faster before going to market.
Demonstrate humility when introducing changes. In contrast to the all-at-once automated app release we 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, we will introduce an opt-in experimental features option in the app for customers who would like to participate in testing them.
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. 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.

In addition, we are also committing to the following to begin to regain your trust:

Extend our home speaker warranties. To reflect our strong belief in the quality of our products, we will extend the manufacturer’s warranty by an additional year for all home theater and plug-in speaker products currently under warranty.
Relentlessly improve the app experience with regular software upgrades. We will continue to roll out updated mobile software versions every 2-4 weeks to optimize and enhance the app experience, even after the current issues are fully resolved.
Establish a Customer Advisory Board. We will form a Customer Advisory Board to ensure we never lose sight of our customers' voices. This board will provide feedback and insights from a customer perspective to help shape and improve our software and products before they are launched.

As a demonstration of the significance of these commitments, the Sonos Executive Leadership Team will not 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.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Thanks for all of your support and patience the last several months - we’re excited to move forward and get you back to enjoying the quality that Sonos is known for.

Your Sonos team.

At this point there are two acceptable messages from Sonos:

1) Here is an app that works EXACTLY as well as the one we had in May when everything was fine

2) Here is a check for the full price you paid for your gear, including taxes and installation costs, so that you can go buy replacements since we turned your perfectly working just fine product into a festering pile of poop

I'm just out of patience for anything else

S

ScottyAloha

Trending Lyricist I

Hi all,

We’ve been sharing app updates with you all over the last several months, and today we wanted to share commitments that we are announcing following our internal review of the app release in May of this year. In addition to all we have been doing to get you back to enjoying your Sonos products, these commitments will drive us to emerge from this with an even stronger commitment to quality. You can read highlights of the commitments below, and read more here: www.sonos.com/commitments.

To address the root causes of the problems of the app release, we commit to:

Unwavering focus on the customer experience. To deliver the highest level of customer experience, we will always establish ambitious quality benchmarks at the start of product development. We will not launch products until they meet these criteria. We will also enhance the tools needed to measure and maintain the standards our customers expect.
Increase the stringency of our pre-launch testing phases. Our beta testing program will include a broader range of customers and more diverse setups, helping us diagnose and resolve issues faster before going to market.
Demonstrate humility when introducing changes. In contrast to the all-at-once automated app release we 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, we will introduce an opt-in experimental features option in the app for customers who would like to participate in testing them.
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. 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.

In addition, we are also committing to the following to begin to regain your trust:

Extend our home speaker warranties. To reflect our strong belief in the quality of our products, we will extend the manufacturer’s warranty by an additional year for all home theater and plug-in speaker products currently under warranty.
Relentlessly improve the app experience with regular software upgrades. We will continue to roll out updated mobile software versions every 2-4 weeks to optimize and enhance the app experience, even after the current issues are fully resolved.
Establish a Customer Advisory Board. We will form a Customer Advisory Board to ensure we never lose sight of our customers' voices. This board will provide feedback and insights from a customer perspective to help shape and improve our software and products before they are launched.

As a demonstration of the significance of these commitments, the Sonos Executive Leadership Team will not 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.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Thanks for all of your support and patience the last several months - we’re excited to move forward and get you back to enjoying the quality that Sonos is known for.

Your Sonos team.

At this point there are two acceptable messages from Sonos:

1) Here is an app that works EXACTLY as well as the one we had in May when everything was fine

2) Here is a check for the full price you paid for your gear, including taxes and installation costs, so that you can go buy replacements since we turned your perfectly working just fine product into a festering pile of poop

I'm just out of patience for anything else

That might work. Installation could add up

S

ScottyAloha

Trending Lyricist I

And another thing, this guy Keith is just their social media head? No offense but was the janitorial staff too busy to post? Wanna say this needs to be elevated to director or vp status at this point 🤣

K

Kumar

I haven’t got much longer on this earth so I really would like fast answers as to how I can play music from my iMac on my silent Sonos speakers.

@Ancient Billy

I hear you; recent events at home have made me realise that in any case we are living on a knife edge. Regardless of age. But in cases like yours, and at 65 I am not too far behind, I suggest you get something like an Echo to get some music continue in your life, even if that is by casting to the Echo from the Spotify native app. You will be surprised at how good the music will sound once your brain gets the few days is all that it needs to get accustomed to the sound signature.

And it will take less than hour to set up, for not much spend.

Once Sonos is back online, you can always revert to it, if still interested.

S

Schubes

Lyricist I

All very interesting but it is very disappointing that there seems to be an emphasis in app updates on adding new features for new products rather than fixing the app for current products. The app is still hopelessly flawed and does not allow customers to get the services that were offered when purchased.The experience when using an Amp to watch TV or stream music is particularly poor (in fact the streaming doesn’t work at all). Perhaps this a is an issue for Consumer Regulators in the countries where Sonos operates. The fact that the products are even still on sale could be a breach of consumer law in some markets - selling products known to be faulty surely can’t be legal (it’s certainly unethical).

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