Can Sonos Regain Customer Trust After App Fiasco?

In the spring of 2024, Sonos announced that the company had “redesigned and rearchitected the Sonos app.” In a press release dated April 23, CEO Patrick Spence said, “After thorough development and testing, we are confident this redesigned app is easier, faster, and better.” The new SONOS app release was a disaster — full of bugs and missing features. The app also suffered from reduced accessibility for some disabled users and reduced functionality in general. For a company that built its reputation almost entirely upon the ease and appeal of its user experience, this was a major misstep. Spence, who joined Sonos as Chief Commercial Officer in 2012 and became CEO in 2017, has his work cut out for him if he wants to regain the trust of Sonos customers. And in a recent press release, Sonos outlined just how Spence and his team plan to make that happen. “At Sonos, we believe in delivering the best sound experience seamlessly and reliably, but we fell short of our standards in our new app release,” the statement explains. “To make sure this never happens again, CEO Patrick Spence is announcing our commitments and renewed focus on software quality, customer experience, and excellence.” Let’s dive into what Sonos has planned.

First, the company is reportedly aiming not only to fix its mistakes, but to “actively build a better Sonos experience for everyone” via a number of initiatives, many of which are already underway, according to Sonos. Others will be implemented over the coming months. Sonos says that its team is committed to “addressing the root causes of the app release issues and regaining the trust of our customers.” The company will establish ambitious quality benchmarks at the start of product development, and refrain from launching products and features until they meet these criteria. This sounds pretty basic, but it’s not something you can take for granted these days. Sonos also says it will “enhance the tools needed to measure and maintain the standards our customers expect.” (If you’re a public relations expert, please let me know what that actually means.)  A more concrete change will be made to increase the stringency of pre-launch testing by including a broader range of customers and more diverse setups when beta-testing new products. Sonos says that this step will help the company to diagnose and resolve issues faster before going to market.

Next — and this is not something you hear everyday — the company vows to “approach change with humility.” One of the biggest problems with the botched app launch was that it rolled out so quickly, to so many users, before the company was essentially forced to admit that it was not ready for prime time. Now Sonos says that, in contrast to an all-at-once, automated release, future changes to the app will be released gradually, allowing customers to “adjust and provide feedback before it becomes the default.” Customers will reportedly be able to opt in to test new features. This more humble (or should I say less arrogant?) approach to the evolution of the Sonos app is the most important change outlined in the press release. Sonos is also creating a new role within the company: Quality Ombudsperson. The establishment of this position should ensure that employees have a clear path to raise concerns regarding quality and customer experience. (There were reports that some Sonos employees tried to warn management that the new app was not ready for its May, 2024 release.) Sonos says that the ombudsperson will report directly to executive leadership, creating a direct line for this kind of information to travel from employees to execs. The ombudsperson will also publish reports twice a year, and present regularly to the Sonos board of directors.

Next, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has decided to extend the manufacturer’s warranty by an additional year for ALL home theater and plug-in speaker products currently under warranty. The idea here is that customers who bought Sonos products recently may feel cheated by the fact that the products have not worked as expected since the app update. By extending the warranties, Sonos is reflecting its “strong belief in the quality of (its) products” while giving customers a full warranty period during which the products will be fully functional. Note that the extension only applies to “home theater and plug-in speaker products,” so the Sonos Move, Move 2, Roam, Roam 2, and Ace headphones are not included. In order to ensure that the products are indeed fully functional, Sonos will continue to roll out updated versions of the app every two to four weeks, “to optimize and enhance the app experience, even after the current issues are fully resolved,” according to the company. We’re told that, since the initial app fiasco in May, the Sonos team has been working diligently to roll out new features, meaningful improvements, and fixes. According to Sonos, over 80 percent of the app’s missing features have been reintroduced as of the time of writing in October 2024. The company expects “almost 100 percent” of these missing features to be restored in the coming weeks. Each new release has been accompanied by detailed notes explaining what issues have been addressed and what is next in the pipeline. If you want to stay updated on specific improvements, check out the Sonos App Improvement and Bug Tracker on Trello.

Finally, Sonos is forming a Customer Advisory Board to help the company stay connected to its customers' voices. Sonos says that this board will “provide feedback and insights from a customer perspective to help shape and improve our software and products before they are launched.” In order to prove how seriously the Sonos Executive Leadership Team is taking the current situation, these execs — including CEO Patrick Spence — will not accept any annual bonus payout for the October 2024 to September 2025 fiscal year, unless “the company succeeds in improving the quality of the app experience and rebuilding customer trust.” It is unclear how it will be determined whether the company has met these goals. But it makes sense for Sonos execs to tighten their belts, as the botched app refresh has certainly cost the company millions.

On August 14th of 2024, we saw the first economic repercussions of this debacle manifest in the form of layoffs. “We made the difficult decision to say goodbye to approximately 100 team members representing 6 percent of the company,” Spence said at the time. “This action was a difficult, but necessary, measure to ensure continued, meaningful investment in Sonos’s product roadmap while setting Sonos up for long-term success.” The announcement of the layoffs came shortly after an earnings call in which Spence told investors that it would cost $20 to $30 million to undo the damage done by last May’s app rollout. The company had already laid off 7 percent of its workers back in June of 2023.

I will not rest until we’re in a position where we’ve addressed the issues and have customers raving about Sonos again. We believe our focus needs to be addressing the app ahead of everything else.

— Patrick Spence, CEO of Sonos

What’s Coming Next From Sonos?

Sonos did release two new products that were delayed so that the company could focus on fixing the app. The new Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar, which features transducer technology developed by Mayht, a startup purchased by Sonos in 2022 will be the first product to benefit from this new tech. The Arc Ultra launched alongside a new Sonos Sub 4 subwoofer. Are you interested in new products from Sonos? Has the company done enough to regain customer trust? Share your thoughts in the related forum thread below.