Update on the Sonos App from Patrick Spence

I think the Sonos CEO should be fired by the board for gross incompetence. As I’ve posted elsewhere, the most recent updates in mid July caused my Local Library to stop working - again - rendering my investment of over $8000 in equipment and installation services for our whole-house music system only about half as useful as it was before. We own decades of purchased music, significant parts of which are not available via streaming, although at present we are working around the issue with a Spotify playlist that I transferred in there using Soundiiz.

Just a quick back of the envelope calculation on the amount of value Sonos has destroyed with the latest updates:

• Let’s conservatively estimate that each Sonos customer averages an investment of $3000. From the other posts I’ve seen, that’s low, so quite defensible.
• Now consider the recent estimates that Sonos has about 15 million customers.
• That represents a total customer capital investment of $45 Billion USD - with a B.
• Not everyone uses Local Library, but let’s estimate that 25% of customers do, and that each customer now gets half the utility from their investment that they did before, reducing its value by half.
• Thus over $5 Billion USD in customer investment has been destroyed - but can be restored simply by fixing the bugs that preclude Local Library from working (even using the network share workaround from April for the new app).

Of course the board will care more about customer retention and its impact on subscriber revenue. How many of the 15 million customers will abandon Sonos and stop subscribing? Hard to say, but the longer this issue persists, the larger that number will be. And the cost to get those customers back will greatly exceed whatever it might cost to just FIX THE DANG ISSUE.

Why is this not the single most important task for the software engineering group? Why are they not working shifts, day and night and weekends too, until it is fixed? I’ve worked leading software engineering and/or product management groups for products in the B2B space, and I just can’t conceive of how this situation continues to exist.

Mike Gilpin

Managing VP

Gartner

Since the option to switch to s1 isn’t listed in the letter does that mean it’s not coming back? Could someone from Sonos clarify? 

I haven’t even watched the video, I am not able to get service on the phone in a reasonable amount of time, I can no longer access my extensive music library still, I cannot access all of my playlists on Apple Music through the app, my system is only usable on Apple Music Streaming but only half of what I used to, cannot get service and cannot figure out how to get my music library back. Service was what Sonos used to provide, I guess since they are the only game in town they can screw all their customers and force them to buy a new system, I have been out shopping at various stores that provide Sonos systems and many of the people selling their products are not even aware that Sonos has a problem and they are continuing to try and sell them. I do not have time in the day to sit on hold and wait for a service person to answer and then go through another hour and a half trying to fix my system. Thank you CEO Patrick.

Thiank for acknowledging the problem almost 80 days into the frustrating and lack luster experience this new app has caused. 80 days! And now you want us to wait more for a “fix”. Roll back. Put this app in beta and bring back the old app until you get something that is tested and a meaningful upgrade out. Take your time with that beta and stop ruining our summer. Did I mention it was really bad timing. 

“How likely are you to recommend Sonos to a friend or family member?”
The answer now is 0. It used to be a ten+. 
Stockholders, board members are you listening. This has cost you $ and is ruining your reputation. 

Give us a definitive timeline that is in days not months or bring back the old app yesterday until you get it right. 
 

if you truly value the customer experience, then don’t make us be your test subjects. That is what focus groups and beta testers are for. 

Sorry, 12 weeks for this half baked letter of apology is ridiculous. It simply means nothing.

My entire Sonos system has been pretty much unusable after the 7th May update.  All the problems are well documented. 

I'm no tech man, but surely, reinstating the pre 7th May version of the app is what we ALL require, then our systems will work.

Sonos can then work on this current appalling version, and get it correct and FULLY  working, before subjecting us to it.

I find Patrick Spences letter quite condescending,  his apology is trite and really just words put together that don't give us, the Sonos customers, any hope, and still not a system that works properly...... since May 7th.

If I hadn't invested so much in my Sonos system. I would bin it off and buy something else. It will take an eternity for Sonos to get my trust back.

I am happy to find they are aware of the issues and are working to remedy them.  We all have gone through issues throughout the past few years and I feel Sonos is a great product.  I will be waiting for the updates to correct the issues.

Nope. Fine here thanks. 

You must be one of the few, or a Sonos employee!

Moderator edit: Sonos staff are clearly labelled as such

Or someone with excellent attention to fine tuning his router, mesh, phone and app? It’s not sorcery that the app works for me.

You can use any android device and install the old version, linked many places on this forum and Reddit, to control your system as you always did.  I purchased an old android tablet from Amazon and installed the old version, but also turned off updates.  I had to do this so that myself and my children could continue to use the system as an alarm-clock.  The notion that they rolled this out without even a tiny consideration of including feature parity is laughable.

Overall, what Sonos has done here is inexcusable, and has broken every rule for technology rollouts, rollbacks, failsafe, safeguards, go/no-go planning for something as big as they claim this is.  

From a third-party perspective, this barely scratches the surface of the depth of their mishandling of what used to be their own healthy product and customer base.  If I was a shareholder, I would be absolutely livid about this because it’s almost as if Sonos is actively poisoning their own reputation for the sake of a few management egos, especially considering the fact that the previous (working) version can still be found, and can still control the systems.

Sonos management, especially upper-level management, must know that every complaint, review, appeal for a rollback, and article/blog written about this fiasco stays on the internet forever.  Samsung, for instance, could come out with a perfectly designed ice-cube maker that lasts forever, and I STILL won’t (probably) ever consider a Samsung refrigerator.  The ice-maker curse is something that’s going to haunt them for years, if not decades.  I have friends and co-workers that still joke about how “at least it’s not a Samsung ice-maker”.

I have dozens of Sonos products.  I look to have music in my life at every opportunity, and yet now every single time I open their latest app, I’m reminded of what a mess their product has become, and I know I’m not alone.  Their own application is a billboard for why people should look for a replacement, when instead it should be a reminder of why music is such an integral part of our lives.  The UX is not intuitive, and often the only thing that works when the app starts is their advertisements.

“Hey Samsung, my ice-maker quit working and started leaking all over the place, can you help?”
No, sorry, but we can insert a flyer with our latest deals into the ice tray if you’d like.