Dive into the chaos of Sonos' disastrous app redesign — furious customers, tumbling stocks and a company scrambling to fix it all.
The Gist
Customer backlash.Sonos users speak out against the app's missing features and poor performance.
Stock impact.The redesign debacle has led to a sharp 25% decline in Sonos' stock value.
Corporate response. Sonos has promised frequent updates, but customers remain skeptical and frustrated.
App redesign gone wrong? Sonos customers say yes.
In early May, audio equipment manufacturer Sonos released an app redesign that it claimed would make the company’s software easier to use, offer more control for users and personalize experiences.
Prior to the redesign, Sonos told customers that all existing functionality would remain the same. Post-release, however, users found this was not the case. And they are not happy about it.
Now, customer satisfaction — as well as company stock prices — has taken a nosedive.
Customers Take Their Complaints Online
A litany of complaints about the newly-designed app have surfaced online on forums like the Sonos Community and Reddit, along with social media sites like Twitter.
The list of grievances is lengthy, including:
Missing sleep timers and alarm functionality
Broken local music library management
Broken volume and pause buttons
Inability to edit playlists and upcoming song queues
Broken accessibility features for blind users
Android and iOS apps draining mobile device battery life
Speakers and hardware not showing up in the app
One Twitter user shares a video of himself starting the redesigned app on his phone, which he says is “new and well spec’d.” In the video, the Sonos app continuously tries to load for nearly two minutes before the video cuts off.
Thought that you guys at @Sonos should watch the new app, that you have now forced the upgrade to, starting on my relatively new and well spec'd phone. Keep watching... pic.twitter.com/CE0TleGAD1
Another person wrote, “@Sonos used to be one of the top companies when people thought of magical UX. Now I can’t even change the volume.”
One user pointed out that problems may go beyond the app redesign, writing, “It’s hard to understand how the app was released without these essential features in place @Sonos… The organization that produced the product probably needs as much work as the software.”
It’s hard to understand how the app was released without these essential features in place @Sonos
The organization that produced the product probably needs as much work as the software pic.twitter.com/t09sbg1wY7
After much backlash, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence published a letter apologizing for the issues and letting customers know what they can expect from the app in the future.
The letter is a major shift from the company’s earlier response to complaints, where Chief Product Officer Maxime Bouvat-Merlin told The Verge, “It takes courage to rebuild a brand’s core product from the ground up, and to do so knowing it may require taking a few steps back to ultimately leap into the future.”
Spence laid out a timeline for future software updates that spread out to November, with plans to introduce a new update every two weeks. The to-do list includes:
Implementing music library configuration, browse, search and play
Improving volume responsiveness
Improving overall system stability and error handling
Improving alarm consistency and reliability
Restoring edit mode for playlists and the queue
Improving functionality in settings
Fixing speakers not connecting to Wi-Fi
While Sonos has been slowly adding back missing features and functionality, the angry customers aren’t going away, with many of them unhappy with the current update timeline.
Many on the Sonos Community forum urged the company to roll back to the old version of the app — something the Sonos team claimed they cannot do. “Rolling back to the previous version of the Sonos app is likely to cause issues. As Sonos continues to advance forward with new updates to the firmware, the old apps will fall out of compatibility quickly,” the Sonos team wrote.
One Twitter user responded to the apology letter joking about the size of the Sonos development team, adding, “suggesting it takes months to restore the ability to edit a queue is unbelievable.”
Another wrote, “It’s simply not good enough. Have spent over $10K on a complete home Sonos system. Even if you fix this app the damage is done. You will never get another dollar from me as a customer.”
It's simply not good enough. Have spent over $10k on a complete home Sonos system. Even if you fix this app the damage is done. You will never get another dollar from me as a customer.
Even with Sonos promising to fix the poorly received app, the damage is done. Customers are unhappy the company released the app when it didn’t appear finished. Others claim that an apology is simply not enough and vow to take their dollars elsewhere.
To add insult to injury, Sonos customers attempting to go use customer service to get their devices and the app working have reported long wait times followed by bad customer experiences once they get through.
One Twitter user wrote, “@Sonos hi Sonos, I just spent 20 mins waiting in a queue for Sonos UK and when your colleague finally answered his line was breaking up really badly, when I said I couldn’t understand him he just hung up…”
@Sonos hi Sonos, I just spent 20 mins waiting in a queue for Sonos UK and when your colleague finally answered his line was breaking up really badly, when I said I couldn’t understand him he just hung up 😡
Sonos has not only lost loyal customers, but investors are losing millions as well. Since the app redesign, Sonos stock has taken a 25% dive in share value. On May 6, the week the redesign dropped, stock prices sat at $17.88 per share. By August 1, they had dropped to $13.09.
It hasn't been a smooth ride for Sonos over the last six months.Sonos NASDAQ
Unfortunately for Sonos (or its customers), this is not the first time the audio brand has flopped on CX. Even back in 2020, customers lamented about the brand’s bad customer service. That complaint came months after the company decided to stop providing software updates for legacy gear — some of which was barely five years old.
The bottom line is clear — stellar customer experience can’t succeed without executive support. And leadership at Sonos seems to fall into the 1% that feels customer experience is “not important," according to the CMSWire State of Digital Customer Experience 2024 report.
Will Sonos be able to recover? Only time will tell. It will require the brand to stick to its word about future updates and features. Even then, customers will still need to see a true value in the products and experiences the company delivers — if they don’t jump to competitors in the meantime.
Right now, it seems the one thing keeping customers with the brand is the money they’ve already invested and don’t want to lose.
About the Author
Michelle Hawley is an experienced journalist who specializes in reporting on the impact of technology on society. As editorial director at Simpler Media Group, she oversees the day-to-day operations of VKTR, covering the world of enterprise AI and managing a network of contributing writers. She's also the host of CMSWire's CMO Circle and co-host of CMSWire's CX Decoded. With an MFA in creative writing and background in both news and marketing, she offers unique insights on the topics of tech disruption, corporate responsibility, changing AI legislation and more. She currently resides in Pennsylvania with her husband and two dogs. Connect with Michelle Hawley:
