You did the complete research, surveys, analyzed the client requirements and built an outstanding product as per the expectations. And you are just eagerly waiting to launch your product. But wait!

Is that it? Does your job end right here? No. Whether you are launching a new product, website, or a mobile application, unless you carry out testing of your product, you are missing out something major. Without proper testing of your product, you can’t even think of launching your website. It seems like a nightmare which might result in unhappy and disappointed customers. And, this is the point where beta testing comes in. 

What is Beta Testing?

Beta testing is a critical phase of the software development lifecycle that involves real users in the real environment. This testing includes an extended period where customers, developers and other stakeholders participate. And once carried out successfully, you’ll receive excellent results with uplifted user experience.  

The main concern here is how are you going to identify who will be your ideal beta customers. You can try some platforms like GetWorm and BetaList. Founder of Zonode, Kevin Graham stated that these platforms are the best if you are looking for beta testers. 

Also, you can go for different social media channels to invite various tech enthusiasts from relevant social media groups to join your beta testing campaign. Isn’t that great!!!

Why is Beta Testing Important?

Customers are becoming smarter than ever before and if you fail to meet their expectations or deliver a product that has pitfalls, they will end up in getting their products built from your competitors. So, carrying out a thorough product beta testing process can help you in receiving stability, error-free outputs and quality results to meet your customer requirements in an accurate manner. 

All in all, beta testing not only identifies the shortcomings in the first stage, rather it does provide an insight of those functionalities which must be included/excluded from the product. Secondly, if we talk about the cost, beta testing is the one-stop solution as it detects the errors at an early stage and saves your expenses, time and energy.

Still not convinced? Well, here is a dropdown of the top reasons why beta testing is an inevitable step for a product’s successful launch.

1 ) Detecting bugs: The topmost reason to carry out beta testing is detecting bugs. Beta tests allow quick discovery of bugs and fix it instantly so that users can experience the error-free and seamless results. Don’t forget that if you fail to present your services perfectly in the first go, you’ll never get another chance to convince your customers. So, you need to build error-free products or be ready to face the consequences.

2 ) Superior quality: Quality is one single thing that can’t be compromised at any cost. Instead of relying on hit and trial methods, you need to properly follow the guidelines while carrying out beta testing. It will definitely result in quality results and all your efforts will not go in vain.

3 ) Usability in real-time: Results you get while testing a product might be different from the results obtained in testing carried out in the real environment. There are chances that a product shows different behavior and outcome on two different devices. Carrying out beta testing is the only method to address these kinds of issues by performing accurate testing in different behaviors and thus uplifting the performance of the product in real-time.

4 ) Better performance: Even if your product doesn’t have any errors but has speed and performance issues, you have a lot on your to do list. So, if you are expecting your product to run perfectly over multiple platforms with full speed and high performance, you need to carry out beta testing.

5 ) Brand awareness & better ROI: Delivering services and products which are good at performance, speed and has no noticeable errors will end up in happy and satisfied customers. They will definitely look forward in the future to get their services done from you and even suggest your services to others as well. This results in popularizing your brand name and getting more profits.

6 ) Practical verification of ideas: Even if you have a solid and well-planned strategy for your product, it is still a theoretical assumption that has no assurance of positive outcomes. Testing the product in the real-time is the basic necessity in this case. Carrying out beta testing helps developers to implement their ideas in real-time and save the deployment costs spent on illogical ideas. Therefore, you can target your customer audience with a cost-effective and smart strategy.

7 ) Costs: In case you detect an error once your product/app is launched, you have no rooms for improvement. The reason being, you can’t ask your customers to download the app again once you are done with the improvement part. By now, you have even lost your customer’s interest and even spent a lot of capital while re-working on the product again. But if you have done beta testing thoroughly in the first stage, it will help you cut the costs and gain the customer’s appreciation. 

8 ) Feedback: You put in your full efforts, spent huge time on the development process and launched your app with great features. But not all features are going to be liked by the customers, they might like some of the additional features. And this is the reason why beta testing is carrying out. You’ll know which features are more liked by the people, you can add them before launching the product or even save it for the next update of the product.

Multiple platform and devices: It might be possible that the developers checked the app working only on a few devices/platforms. Once you launch the app, users will feel difficulty to operate the app on their device, thus making the situation complex. Going for beta testing allows developers to test the devices on all possible devices, operating systems and platforms. Thus, presenting hassle-free results on the customer’s end.

Over to you!

According to Anand Sanwal, the CEO of tech data and analytics firm CB Insights, “There are underlying trends such as a decline in car ownership and the shift to living in urban areas which also suggest that the urban transport market that Bird and others are attacking is growing”.

In this digital world, where no one is willing to compromise on quality, you can’t even think of skipping the testing process. You have already spent a lot on your product development and have put in a lot of efforts, resources, time and workforce. So, invest a little more in the testing of your product so that you can rely on the outcomes without worrying about the pitfalls which are accompanied otherwise.