Recommitting to Quality and Customer Experience
1 Oct 2024
At Sonos, we believe in delivering the best sound experience — seamlessly and reliably. But we fell short when our new app release didn’t meet the standards we promised. Since then, we’ve spent time listening to our customers and employees, learning from our mistakes, and taking action. Today, we’re announcing new commitments to show our renewed focus on software quality, customer experience, and delivering the excellence you deserve from Sonos.
Our Commitments
We’re working to ensure we don’t just fix our mistakes but actively build a better Sonos experience for everyone. Many of these initiatives are already underway and others will be implemented through the remainder of the year.
These commitments focus on addressing the root causes of the app release issues and regaining the trust of our customers.
01
Unwavering Focus on 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.
02
Increasing the Stringency of Pre-Launch Testing
Our beta testing programme will include a broader range of customers and more diverse setups, helping us diagnose and resolve issues faster before going to market.
03
Approaching Change with Humility
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. We will also provide customers the ability to opt in to test new features.
04
Appointing a Quality Ombudsperson
We are creating a new role: Quality Ombudsperson. This person will ensure employees have a clear path to raise concerns regarding quality and customer experience. The ombudsperson will report directly to executive leadership, publish reports twice a year, and present regularly to the Sonos board of directors.
In addition, we are also committing to the following to begin to regain your trust:
05
Extending 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 theatre and plug-in speaker products currently under warranty.
06
Relentless App Improvement
We will continue to roll out updated mobile software versions every 2-4 weeks to optimise and enhance the app experience, even after the current issues are fully resolved.
07
Establishing 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.
Ongoing App Improvements and Updates
Since 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.
With each release, we share detailed notes on what we’ve addressed and what we are working on next through our Sonos Community. To track our progress, you can stay updated on specific improvements via the Sonos App Improvement and Bug Tracker on Trello.
We are committed to making Sonos better than ever, and these commitments are just the beginning of that journey. Thank you for being a part of the Sonos community.
