Finding craftsmen is difficult, they never have time or I can’t trust them! These are some of the assumptions that end consumers tend to sometimes have. This week we tested our assumptions and our app with members of the beta test panel created as a part of the Djøf Business Community.
An afternoon at the Copenhagen Fintech Lab and a bunch of excited companies were all ready to show beta testers from Djøf (one of Denmark’s largest trade unions) their product. We were all hoping for input to improve and define what we are doing.
In return, the beta testers received an insight to what the life of startups is like and what new technology they are implementing and why. Djøf has created a Djøf Business Community, with the aim of helping entrepreneurs and increase the amount of entrepreneurship – it is free for everybody to be a part of the community.
We spent two hours conducting in depth testing on our app with panel members, trying out different scenarios. The focus was to understand end consumers and their experience from working with craftsmen by using the app. Through the workshop, we received a lot of great input and thoughts to process – and also a couple of bugs to fix! But we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Getting valuable feedback
Pitching our app is one thing, but seeing if it makes sense to normal end consumers is hair-raising and exciting at the same time. As we have developed the app, we have been sitting in a one to one basis with our customers, so we can see their faces and hear them talk. Hence, having a more dynamic group was an exciting challenge, with feedback coming from different corners all the time, making it more difficult to capture it all. We had some help with a new feedback form, borrowed from our friends at Ernit, and we recorded a couple of the sessions to review later, which helped a lot.
We received some really valuable feedback and we wish that the whole team could have been there to hear it! In the sessions, we talked about the best way to show our reputation score, what things are important when trying to gain trust and how to reduce points of friction. We can not wait to process all the feedback!
All this information is key for us to improve our app and our users’ experience. We feed the improvements and issues into our development pipeline and regularly release improved versions of the app. These beta test sessions help us to deliver a product that is exceptionally useful for consumers and tradespeople alike.
Creating the ecosystem of testers
Getting testers can be time consuming and difficult if you are looking for specific target groups. So sharing knowledge and having collaboration partners like Djøf Business Community and the event for Beta Testers to test FinTech products means a lot for a startup like us.
This has made us think a lot. How can this knowledge be shared or expanded? Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a test panel in various industries? We are working with craftsmen and we are not the only one. What if Dansk Byggeri, Dansk Håndværk or one of the players in the construction industry had a panel of testers we could talk to – maybe once a month. It would show the craftsmen what kind of new digital tools are arising in their industry and it would give startups or companies a place to test and develop new idea – benefiting both parties. Just a thought going forward with testing.
Have a story about working with small businesses? Share your stories with us, click here!