Sonos has announced that the company isn’t far from bringing its troubled new app up to the level it arguably should have launched at (or, at least, closer to), while also promising some changes in the company’s approach to ensure that it won’t have the same woes again in the future.
The two headlines for existing Sonos users here are that the company is extending the warranties of existing products still under warranty by a year, and that Sonos now says: “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. The reliability and speed of the app has improved with each release.”
That’s good news for everyone who’s been struggling with the lack of particular features, though the reliability will be an equal concern for anyone who’s invested a lot into a wide range of the best Sonos speakers, and there’s a less clear measure for that (after all, anyone who promises you that a network-based app is going to work 100% of the time is someone you can never trust).
Sonos also says it’s making four commitments with the goal of “addressing the root causes of the problems with the app release”, some which are fuzzier than others. These are [presented unedited – all Sonos’s words]:
“Unwavering focus on the customer experience. To ensure that we deliver the highest level of customer experience, we will always establish ambitious quality benchmarks at the outset of product development and will not launch products before meeting these criteria. We will also enhance the tools necessary to measure the quality of the experience actually being delivered to customers to ensure that we maintain the standards our customers expect.
“Increase the stringency of our pre-launch testing phases. Our beta testing program will include more types of customers and more diverse setups for a longer testing period. This will allow us to find, diagnose and solve customer concerns more quickly 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.”
If you’ve read the story of what apparently went wrong with the new app’s launch, some of these are arguably just trying to change the company culture back to what it essentially was before things got shaken up. But if Sonos follows through, that could certainly lead to more successful launches than the app and the middling reception of the Sonos Ace headphones from the public at large (even if one of our writers hasn’t taken them off since launch).
Sonos also has three measures that it hopes will regain its customers’ trust, including the extended warranties mentioned above. Again, presented in the company’s words, here they are:
“Extend our home speaker warranties. To reflect our strong belief in the quality of our products, we will extend the manufacturer’s warranty by one year for all home theater and plug-in speaker products currently under warranty.
“Relentlessly improve the app experience with regular software upgrades. We will roll out updated mobile software versions every 2-4 weeks to optimize and enhance the software experience, even once this issue is resolved.
“Establish a Customer Advisory Board. To ensure we never lose sight of the voice of the customer, this board will provide feedback and insights from a customer perspective to help shape and improve our software and products before they are launched.”
Who knows whether all of these measures will really have teeth, and if they do, how quickly they’ll make a difference to the quality of Sonos’s products – perhaps its too late for the seemingly imminent launch of the Sonos Arc Ultra, or maybe in fact they’re all just in time for it.
The big question is whether it convinces Sonos’s existing customers to stick with the company the next time they’re looking to upgrade their audio, or whether they’ll turn to another options among the best wireless speakers.
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