đŸȘ” Peak CX

Sonos, the product job market, Atlassian, and more.

Author

Backlog
September 02, 2024

Now that everyone in the whole world is trying to automate everything, some businesses are running into a bit of a pickle. How do we teach our chatbots to be
 more human?

AWS Rekognition service tried it and dramatically failed. Microsoft’s Emotion API could be the way. One startup, Uniphore, raised $610 million to solve this very problem.

All I want is an emotional support chatbot I can speak to when my CEO tries to shove random features in my roadmap. Is that too much to ask?

In this issue: Sonos, the product job market, Atlassian, and more.

Let’s get it.

Is this peak CX?

Sonos app / sonos.com

Sonos made a lot of noise (see what I did there?) lately due to the butchering of their mobile app.

Installers have reported countless problems. Product managers and designers took to Reddit to discuss how such a terrible rollout could have even happened.

It got so bad the CEO publicly apologised for the update:

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.

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence

Suffice it to say the Sonos product team is in a bit of a pickle.

Enter ‘Keith From Sonos’, their social & community manager. Keith created a public Trello board for users to raise and track bugs and shared it with Reddit.

Sonos’ public bug tracker Trello board

While this doesn’t fix the enormous problems, this initiative certainly endeared the Reddit community.

This is peak CX. Novel way to handle issues. Keith, if there aren't any speeches about you in CX circles any time soon, I'll be incredibly disappointed.

chiefgenius, Reddit user

This saga goes to show that sometimes all you need is a caring team member (and better QA).

Product jobs are on the rise

Listings for product jobs are up 3% MoM / thebacklog

Keeping a pulse on the product industry also includes its job market.

We released our State of the Product Jobs Report (August 2024). It contains all the data, trends, and insights you need.

A few highlights:

  • Overall product job listings are up 3% MoM.

  • Remote product roles are slightly down and only make up 22% of total job opportunities.

  • Google Trends continues to report lower interest in “Product management” as a topic, though that is following an extreme peak of interest during COVID.

From the woodshed

  • Consumers are moving away from X and into more niche social media platforms. Strava, Letterboxd, and Bluesky are all experiencing peak signups and usage with respectively 120m, 14m, and 7.6m users.

  • Atlassian bring an AI assistant to their suite of products. The assistant is automatically invited to meetings, takes notes, follows up with attendees, and even creates to-do lists. Learn more about Rewatch.

  • France formally charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov.

  • Remember a few months ago when Gemini’s AI would generate a perfectly diverse bunch of people, regardless of historical accuracy? Google say they’ve fixed the issue
 maybe. Not totally. Stand by.

Get backlog’d

We’ve all been there

Written by: Product nerds. What did you expect?

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