Customers expect a personalized, intuitive experience when interacting with a brand. If they run into issues along the way, they may leave and bounce to a competitor’s site. Ideally, your website and product will perform so smoothly that they’ll never have a millisecond to consider going elsewhere.
Performance testing ensures everything functions as it should and identifies areas for improvement. Learn more about the key benefits of performance testing.
1. Retain Customers
Why is customer retention so crucial to your business’ success? In order to grow, you must keep the customers you have while adding new ones.
In a 2022 study released by McKinsey & Company, researchers found consumers are two times more pessimistic than they were in 2020. They’re being careful about where and how they spend their money. To keep them with your brand, you have to add value to what you already offer.
Keep the customers you have by continuously improving your website, software and products. Performance testing identifies the weak points and lets you fix them before they become problems for your clients.
2. Improve UX
Anything you can do to make the user experience (UX) better helps drive new customers to your site. Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful tool driving business growth. You don’t have to pay anything extra or come up with an ad to take advantage of word-of-mouth marketing. All you have to do is ensure you offer the best experience possible to current users.
Performance testing identifies bottlenecks and weaknesses in your design. You can then brainstorm ways to fix those issues. Conduct more performance testing and make additional tweaks. By paying attention to the UX, you wind up with a product that stands out from the competition.
3. Save Money
Performance testing saves you money in a variety of ways. First, you’ll avoid costly returns, lost customers and negative feedback that might harm your brand image. You’ll also save money if you use non-destructive testing methods that ensure your design, product or service functions as expected without destroying the original design.
You can have equipment in-house for such testing, which saves you additional time. Time is money, so you’ll be able to turn around new products faster than expected and take them to market. The faster they go to market, assuming they are fully vetted, the sooner you’ll be making a return on your investment.
4. Gain a Competitive Edge
Performance testing allows you to gain traction against competitors. All other things being equal, if your product lasts longer or is known for being reliable, you’re going to gain loyal customers who won’t buy any other brand.
You can also use reliability as one of your unique value propositions (UVP). Highlight your UVP in your marketing efforts to show how much care you put into being the best in your field. Your target audience may pay a bit more for quality, knowing they won’t have to replace the item as soon or run into service issues for software or service-based brands.
5. Increase Profits
One study showed a 5% increase in customer retention brings a 25%-95% boost in revenue. When you focus on making your customer base as happy as possible, you’ll naturally make more money.
Current customers are more likely to spend with you because they already know you test products before releasing them. They’ll spend more than someone who’s never heard of you before and doesn’t understand the value your brand brings.
Keeping the customers you have is a pretty simple model of offering value, reliability and excellent customer service.
6. Speed Up Performance
Testing for performance at the core is about finding ways to improve functionality. Run scenarios to see how the system works with heavy loads. For software as a service (SaaS) companies, what happens if the servers experience high usage during a specific time? Can the system handle the load? If not, what can you do to troubleshoot the issue and ensure users avoid lag?
The key to utilizing testing fully is having experienced developers who understand how to fix the issues the software finds during the debugging process. You also must assign a priority code to each problem. Some issues are bigger than others and impact the user experience the most. Fix anything that impacts UX first.
7. Secure Positive Reviews
The majority of online shoppers read reviews before buying a product online. Research shows around 49% of consumers trust a review as much as they would a recommendation from someone they know.
However, they are also onto the fake review trend and can easily recognize if a review sounds authentic. Using fake reviews serves as a turnoff to them and they may shy away from your brand.
The best way to secure positive reviews is to improve your product and keep your customers happy. Once they are thrilled with your brand, go ahead and ask them to leave feedback, but never tell your customers what rating they should give.
If you want authentic, trustworthy reviews, you have to let your customers say what they want and not worry if a few bad reviews slip through. You can even use negative feedback to show how much you care. Respond to any issues by fixing them and then commenting under the review that you appreciate the feedback and have used performance testing to improve the product and fix the problem.
Others will see you care about your customers and want them to be happy. They’ll notice you provide solutions rather than excuses.
Start Performance Testing Immediately
Adding performance testing is as easy as implementing a few new procedures today. It’s never too early to jump into product improvement and never too late to add additional steps to what you already test. With a little attention to detail, you’ll gain a reputation for offering the highest quality in your niche.
