Is customer support at sonos terrible?

  • 14 August 2023
  • 26 replies
  • 230 views

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I have tried to find a resolution today for my SL one as it keeps dropping out whilst the others are find, playing music delayed and having reverb. Sonos say its interference, though all other sonos equipment works. 

They have been quite rude and instead of escalating have left me on hold for 90 minutes to then hang up. 

 

 


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26 replies

Let’s not have any of the “paid shill” accusations please. @Airgetlam is one of the most voluntarily helpful users here. Sonos staff are clearly marked, with “SONOS” emblazoned across their mugshot.

 

If the system diagnostic showed network issues in the vicinity of the speaker then that’s completely plausible. 

Okay so yourself and airgetlam both post 30k voluntarily on the Sonos forum page? 

In my case I’ve been here for over 15 years, was an earlyish adopter, and for 5 years user-moderated the old forums which took rather a lot of posts. Next accusation? 

 

If you’d like assistance, describe where the speaker is, what it’s next to, what WiFi channel it’s using and so forth. If you’re here just to let off steam, well that’s already been achieved.

it looks like you can have faulty equipment and interference. 

If the equipment is faulty (and I think we were getting to that point here too), then it hardly matters about the rest.

Your earlier remarks implied that interference has to mean that the equipment is faulty. It does not. 

Right, so you’ve been writing 5.5 posts a day without a break, for the past 15 years, voluntarily?

Excellent maths. Yes, it was voluntary. I was an early adopter/enthusiast. And like I said:

for 5 years user-moderated the old forums which took rather a lot of posts

 

 

Think you’re missing the point, I need support with a faulty system and I’m asking people for help with customer service based on their experiences… not peoples opinions on the customer service 😂

This is primarily a user-to-user community, though of course us mere customers no longer have access to system diagnostics. Sonos staff do look in, and sometimes will reference such diagnostics to make suggestions. Often as not they’ll point a poster back to Customer Service…

 

Listen, we may be able to assist. Maybe not, but we can try. There have certainly been a few situations where the collective wisdom here has helped. If you could describe your Sonos system and network it could at least get us started.

Okay, so Level 1 Support maybe misconstrued the interference metrics (which as noted could well have been distorted by the fault). Level 2 made a correct diagnosis after a more thorough examination. 

A positive outcome in the end then. Excellent.

I’m sure you’ll therefore concede that the answer to the thread’s title question is, on balance, “NO”...

Every time I’ve needed to call in, I’ve found them to be acceptable. Perhaps my expectations for support from minimum wage folks is slightly different than yours, though, but I’d also not want them to double the cost of their speakers to be able to provide ‘too notch support’ at every call. 

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Hi Bruce,

 

just checked out your account, looks like you work for Sonos with all 35000 replies on the message board, I’m not sure you can speak from experience or not have bias here. 
 

I am sure they are very capable people, however todays session has forced me to reach out to senior stakeholders at Sonos 

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Okay so yourself and airgetlam both post 30k voluntarily on the Sonos forum page? 

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Right, so you’ve been writing 5.5 posts a day without a break, for the past 15 years, voluntarily?

Think you’re missing the point, I need support with a faulty system and I’m asking people for help with customer service based on their experiences… not peoples opinions on the customer service 😂

If you have another SONOS speaker, what happens if you physically swap them?

In order to offer any meaningful help, we’ll need more information about your SONOS system, your network, and other nearby wireless gadgets.

With respect to the “interference” reported by SONOS Support, this was indicated in the diagnostics. Unfortunately, interference varies from point to point in three dimensions and support cannot send a magic bullet and make it go away. If we had more information, we can make suggestions. It’s possible that moving something a foot or two will improve the situation.

I’ll mention a big problem that I had in 2005. The system was intermittently barely functional. I started keeping a log and it quickly became clear that daytime use and some evenings were fine, while other evenings were bad. Sunday was very, very bad. I slipped a copy of my log under my neighbor’s door, along with a polite note. A couple days later the note returned with annotations. She sometimes traveled overnight for business and called mom on Sunday. She was using a cordless phone system known to cause severe WiFi interference and one of my SONOS units was on the other side of the wall from her favorite chair. I rearranged my system to avoid placing a wireless unit at that spot and my issues were resolved.

@Bradley Foley

Yet another non-paid volunteer here, willing to help too.

Here’s a place to start if it is a wireless interference issue:

Document: https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/reduce-wireless-interference

YT Video:

 

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Thanks for the support, however we are missing the point, the equipment is faulty and has interference, not one or the other, tried to raise this with Sonos constantly. 
 

yet they refuse to acknowledge the outcome being anything other than interference. To the point they left me on hold for 90 minutes until the day was completed, tried calling back to no dial as they had shut for the day…

I have raised with trustpilot, it’s my fault I should of done my research prior and realised that they were not a trustworthy company with 1.5 rating.

 

 

the equipment is faulty and has interference, not one or the other

 

Sorry, but this is simply not true. The basic laws of physics mean that radio signals can interfere with one another. If that meant the equipment was faulty then every single transceiver, including every mobile phone in the world, would also be faulty.

A simple example: try using Bluetooth earphones adjacent to an operating microwave oven. Both use the 2.4GHz band, but don’t cooperate. The radio frequency noise emanating from an oven is more than sufficient to disrupt the delicate flow of information over a very low power Bluetooth connection. The same is true for a 2.4GHz WiFi signal. 

Some reading matter:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_interference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

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Ratty, 

 

Again missing the point, for instance there could be interference and a button not work as the solder connection has been broken. Thus the equipment has interference and is faulty. 

Honestly I am not sure I can make this any clearer….

 

Are we having a semantics war? We thought we were discussing unfortunate electromagnetic interactions that prevent successful communications between units, not mechanical failures that “interfere” with proper operation.

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‘I have tried to find a resolution today for my SL one as it keeps dropping out whilst the others are find, playing music delayed and having reverb. Sonos say its interference, though all other sonos equipment works. 

They have been quite rude and instead of escalating have left me on hold for 90 minutes to then hang up. ‘

Semantics, we aren't even talking about the same thing anymore… 

All my equipment from sonos works, bar this one, even moving the equipment it still has the same issue, which means there is a fault with the equipment. Sonos refuses to take ownership and blames microwaves, though all other equipment works fine. I am then left on hold, until the day ends and they hang up. 

Be realistic, stop avoiding the point and what you are adding is going round in circles on a problem which is not highlighting the issue. 

Do a controlled test. Swap the ‘faulty’ unit with one that doesn’t suffer from any issues.

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finally, already completed test, no issue. 

Faulty system still has issues when placed in another room. 

 

 

Does that speaker only suffer when it’s grouped with others? 

If so, does it make a difference whether you (a) start from that room and add others, or (b) start from another room and then add that room?

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wouldnt be able to tell on the delay as need more than one to play for that, though still get the drop out, even when main speaker on grouping or on its own. 

Temporarily wire that speaker to your router with an Ethernet cable and wait 5 mins for the system to re-adjust.

Does it still drop out when played on its own? 

Temporarily wire the unit to your router.

(Oh well, I type slowly)

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Chaps, 

Got some bad news for you, after escalating to level 2 and running all the diagnostic tests, Sonos has indeed found the equipment to be faulty, regardless of the interference. 

I feel a bit like ace ventura in pet detective when he finds out that henry finkle is longhorn, ive cracked the case and ive also kissed a guy. 

thanks for the support, it looks like you can have faulty equipment and interference. 

Best 

 

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Ratty, I was never suggesting that the interference was the fault. 

the specific remark was there can be interference and equipment can be faulty, I did no mention that interference was causing the fault, merely that sonos said the interference was the issue and not the equipment. I said that both can be true, its okay for you guys to be wrong in this instance, i dont blame you. 

Best 

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You’re just being a troll now, it’s a bit embarrassing