Darren Choong
Digital products are always evolving to keep pace with high customer expectations. Securing a well-structured testing budget has become a critical factor in ensuring that your digital solutions meet the highest standards of quality, security, functionality, and most importantly, usability.
Understanding the testing budget
At the heart of any successful digital product is an effective testing budget. This budget is dedicated to the careful evaluation of your software, applications, and products to ensure they meet user expectations and industry standards.
In many organizations, testing budgets are often subsumed under broader quality assurance (QA) or general testing budgets, which can make it difficult to secure a specific budget for crowdtesting – especially if senior management don’t know its benefits.
Thankfully, crowdtesting is the perfect complement for many current testing methodologies that you might already be using, such as test automation or engaging a UX agency. Crowdtesting can also enhance the data provided by your existing test set-up. This can, in turn, make it easier to justify the need for crowdtesting within your general testing budget.
The evolution of management buy-in
Not too long ago, convincing senior management to invest in a UX team, let alone allocate a budget, was an uphill battle. Even just a few years ago it was still a challenge to convince stakeholders of the value of incorporating customer insights. Such convincing was often done by sharing videos of customers discussing and testing products.
Today, UX plays a central role in product development, making customer-centric testing imperative. This is where crowdtesting excels and why it is a powerful addition to your standard testing.
Let’s take a look at some vital points when talking budget.
What can your business gain from Crowdtesting?
Crowdtesting is rapidly redefining the testing landscape with a number of benefits that go beyond traditional testing approaches:
1. Efficiency in tester management: A notable challenge for in-house testing teams is the constant high staff turnover. Crowdtesting removes this burden by providing access to a skilled and diverse community of testers, saving time and effort while improving test quality.
2. Scalability and flexibility: Crowdtesting offers unparalleled scalability, allowing products to be tested on multiple platforms and devices This flexibility accommodates fluctuating and unpredictable testing needs and ensures that products are evaluated in real-world scenarios and conditions.
3. Cost efficiency: Unlike traditional in-house testers who are paid a fixed salary, crowdtesters are paid per project. This pay-per-project model optimizes testing costs by aligning expenses with actual testing workload, resulting in significant financial savings.
4. Reduced customer service costs: Hidden bugs can lead to customer frustration, resulting in increased customer service calls and support costs. Crowdtesting identifies and fixes these issues, resulting in a smoother user experience and reduced customer service costs.
Resource
Your Guide to Crowdtesting
Find out how crowdtesting can provide you with real user insights to deliver a better customer experience and increase your conversion rate today.
How to secure your crowdtesting budget?
Securing a crowdtesting budget starts with strategic planning. Even if immediate budget availability isn’t on the horizon, laying the groundwork for the next fiscal year can yield remarkable results.
Consider the power of foresight: If a specific testing need arises in the future, planning a month in advance can ensure a seamless execution. This proactive approach further demonstrates your commitment to test quality and efficient resource allocation.
But what if you’re facing the challenge of project-based budgeting, where delays often disrupt your plans? According to Gartner research, 25% of all projects are delayed, often making project-based budgeting unrealistic.
What you really need to do is adopt a “block funding” approach. Block funding means allocating a fixed budget for your testing needs. It may sound risky, but when done with accountability and a focus on business outcomes, block funding proves to be far more efficient.
The product team should play a central role in this budget allocation process. They can present delivery roadmaps aligned to business objectives, and then allocate block funding based on its contribution to overall business goals.
Block funding also gives you both stability and flexibility. It allows you to adapt to changing testing needs while maintaining a consistent commitment to quality. By incorporating block funding into your budgeting approach, you can not only overcome the challenges of project-based budgeting but also ensure that your testing resources are aligned with your strategic goals.
Balance short-term fixes and long-term growth
When creating a compelling budget proposal, it’s also important to focus on short-term problem resolution and long-term business growth.
Examine your short-term challenges — issues that, if identified and addressed through testing in production, can prevent immediate revenue loss and customer dissatisfaction or churn.
These can include performance issues, scalability concerns, compatibility, localization, security vulnerabilities, integration problems, error handling, payment failures, data updates, feature interactions, and more.
At the same time, consider the long-term benefits.
How can crowdtesting position your company to attract new customers, increase user satisfaction, and drive continued growth?
1. Seamless user experience: Crowdtesting identifies and fixes usability issues, ensuring user-friendly products that satisfy customers and lead to positive reviews, attracting new users.
2. Bug-free reliability: Crowdtesting uncovers hidden bugs, building customer trust with glitch-free products that foster loyalty and drive word-of-mouth recommendations.
3. Swift improvements: Crowdtesting enables rapid issue detection and product updates, showcasing a commitment to customer feedback and continuous enhancement.
4. Expanding user base: Enhanced experiences and reliable products attract new customers through organic growth, increasing brand recognition and market presence.
5. Informed decisions: Crowdtesting offers data-driven insights, guiding strategic choices that align products with customer needs, increasing satisfaction and growth.
6. Competitive edge: Prioritizing crowdtesting differentiates by delivering quality. Meeting rising user expectations sets companies apart, attracting reliability-seeking customers.
7. Reputation boost: Positive crowdtested experiences build a strong brand reputation. Trustworthy companies retain and attract users, establishing long-term growth.
Quantifying the unquantifiable: Calculating ROI in UX and QA
While ROI calculations are generally clear-cut when it comes to quality assurance (QA) efforts, they can be more challenging to define and measure within the realm of user experience (UX). However, despite this complexity, the concept of ROI still holds its strength and significance.
Consider this scenario: A subscription-based service like Disney+ encounters a bug that prevents users from subscribing. The loss of subscription revenue becomes a tangible metric to calculate potential ROI through crowdtesting. Expand this calculation to include customer service costs, customer retention, and time saved. These multiple ROI considerations underscore the value of crowdtesting.
Demonstrate cross-departmental benefits
The benefits of crowdtesting extend across departments, making a compelling case for testing budget allocation:
- QA testing: Crowdtesting protects revenue by identifying subscription glitches that lead to lost business opportunities.
- UX testing: By addressing pain points, crowdtesting increases user satisfaction and loyalty, fostering a robust user base.
- Payments testing: Secure and seamless transaction processes ensured by crowdtesting contribute to a seamless customer experience.
Whether you’re an individual contributor or a key decision maker, securing a crowdtesting budget requires a strategic approach tailored to your role:
For individual contributors
While individual contributors may have limited influence over budget allocation, raising awareness of the benefits of crowdtesting can have a ripple effect.
Their insights and support can lead to changes in organizational priorities.
For key decision makers
Key decision makers have the power to reshape testing budgets and embrace crowdtesting for transformative results:
1. Start with a proof-of-concept (POC) crowdtest: If you have a discretionary budget, allocate a portion (say €10k) to a POC crowdtest. Positive results will demonstrate the value of crowdtesting and lay the groundwork for future budget allocations.
2. Demonstrate value to decision makers: Showcase the efficiency gains, scalability, and cost-effectiveness of crowdtesting through the results of the POC. This paves the way for increased budget allocations in subsequent years.
3. Address stakeholder concerns: To secure immediate or additional budget, address the concerns of senior management, procurement, and legal and security teams. Highlight the benefits, demonstrate the need, and allay security concerns with Testbirds’ expertise. Here’s a few concerns that might need to be addressed:
• Budget worries: Show how the initiative’s benefits outweigh costs.
• Proving value: Demonstrate how the initiative will create value.
• Highlight need: Present data on current issues the initiative will solve.
• Legal and security: Explain how the initiative complies with regulations and data security.
• Data integration: Address how the initiative will fit with existing systems.
• Time management: Share a clear plan to minimize disruptions.
• Resource planning: Outline available resources and strategic alignment.
• Measure success: Describe how success will be measured and reported.
• Vendor expertise: Showcase Testbirds’ experience for confidence.
• Payment flexibility: Take advantage of Testbirds’ highly flexible payment system, BirdCoins, which enables you to select from over 20 crowdtesting solutions across Testbirds’ service levels.
Leveraging Testbirds: Your partner in budget procurement
With our legal and security experts, we work with you to understand your unique requirements so that we can develop a comprehensive testing scope and research strategy for you.
This customized approach enables you to present a well-structured crowdtesting budget proposal to procurement and management, and instills confidence in the potential ROI of crowdtesting.
Why Testbirds?
Our Approach to Crowdtesting
Learn how we can build better digital experiences, together, with our unique approach to crowdtesting with one of the largest global communities of real users and testers.
Crowdtesting isn’t just a line item, it’s a catalyst for growth
The importance of a software testing budget cannot be overstated in today’s technology-driven world. The efficiency, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and customer satisfaction benefits of crowdtesting make it a powerful solution.
By aligning strategies with short- and long-term goals, demonstrating ROI, and addressing stakeholder concerns, you can unlock your company’s crowdtesting budget and redefine the success of your digital products.
Reach out to your strategic partner today, as we provide the expertise and insight that will facilitate your budget acquisition process.
