Patrick Spence the CEO of US Sound Company Sonos is back apologizing for questionable business decisions two years after a massive apology , when his Company tried to nobble perfectly good Sonos sound systems in an effort to get existing customers to buy a new Sonos speaker, now he is back apologizing for a dodgy app roll out with questions raised as to whether he is the right person to be leading the Company whose shares are down over 18% year to date.
The recent Sonos app redesign was intended to deliver a modern app after customers had problems with the previous app that was initially designed for proprietary Sonos networks.
The latest apology comes two months after its May release with customers are calling for a class action after their current systems failed to respond using the new app which has turned out to be a colossal mistake and a product that appears to have not been road tested prior to release while also being poorly designed.
Sonos has been steadily adding back missing features and functionality with frequent app updates, but this only led to more frustrations for customers who are now ditching their Sonos speakers for other brands.
CEO Spence today published a letter outlining what consumers can expect in the near future.
It also contains a direct apology for the rough patch that he claims “too many” users have gone through in recent weeks since the dodgy app was released to owners of Sonos products.
After claiming that an “overhaul took courage” he’s been described as a CEO whose Company is tone-deaf, given all the bugs and technical difficulties the business has put customers through both currently and in the past.
Some claim that it’s a good reason for consumers not to buy the Companies new $699 Ace headphones that relies on the new app.
“I want to begin by personally apologizing for disappointing you,” Spence writes.
“There isn’t an employee at Sonos who isn’t pained by having let you down, and I assure you that fixing the app for all of our customers and partners has been and continues to be our number one priority.”
He also addressed issues with local library playback and the ability to edit a song queue from within the Sonos app.
These features are not going to be available for another three months with no explanation as to why they were not in the original release of the app.
He claims that in hindsight, it’s painfully obvious that Sonos should have released the rebuilt app as a beta for early adopters of the Sonos Ace headphones, which aren’t compatible with the previous version, and kept the existing software in place while bringing the two to parity.
Here’s Spence’s letter in full:
We know that too many of you have experienced significant problems with our new app which rolled out on May 7, and I want to begin by personally apologizing for disappointing you. There isn’t an employee at Sonos who isn’t pained by having let you down, and I assure you that fixing the app for all of our customers and partners has been and continues to be our number one priority.
We developed the new app to create a better experience, with the ability to drive more innovation in the future, and with the knowledge that it would get better over time. However, since launch we have found a number of issues. Fixing these issues has delayed our prior plan to quickly incorporate missing features and functionality.
Since May 7, we have released new software updates approximately every two weeks, each making significant and meaningful improvements, adding features and fixing bugs. Please see the release notes for Sono’s software updates for detailed information on what has been released to date.
While these software updates have enabled the majority of our customers to have a robust experience using the Sonos app, there is more work to be done. We have prioritized the following improvements in our next phase of software updates:
- July and August:
- Improving the stability when adding new products
- Implementing Music Library configuration, browse, search, and play
- August and September:
- Improving Volume responsiveness
- User interface improvements based on customer feedback
- Improving overall system stability and error handling
- September:
- Improving Alarm consistency and reliability
- September and October:
- Restoring edit mode for Playlists and the Queue
- Improving functionality in settings
We plan to continue releasing new software updates on a bi-weekly cadence. With each release, we will share detailed notes on what we’ve addressed and what we’re working on next in our community.
We deeply appreciate your patience as we address these issues. We know we have work to do to earn back your trust and are working hard to do just that. I am always open to your feedback; you can find me via email at ceo@sonos.com.
Sincerely,
Patrick Spence: CEO
