Imagine you are in Target on a busy December weekend with a basket full of toys for the kids, holiday decorations, and tons of other “essentials” when suddenly the lights dim, bouncers appear out of nowhere, and kick everyone out of the store immediately. Leave your basket! If you are in the middle of a checkout, stop where you are with your money on the counter and just get out! As you stand out in the cold wondering what just happened they put a sign on the door that says “Whoops, it appears we are having a system problem, please come back laterz”. Not know how long “laterz” is a few of you in the crowd stick around for 10 minutes trying the door again and again (pressing F5) when suddenly the door opens, the lights come on and the entire store including employees acts as though nothing just happened. By the way, the items in your basket were all put neatly back on the shelves.
When your website has a problem that is exactly what you are doing to your customers. To add insult to injury, you don’t even know who you are pissing off so there will be no chance to apologize. What do you think a responsible retailer would pay to ensure that NEVER happens, not even once. I bet most companies would dig pretty deep into their purses to prevent that horror so why do so many online businesses roll those dice each and every day?
A brick and mortar shop by definition is brick and mortar, not straw and mud. Quality takes a little more time, quality comes with a larger price tag, quality requires additional resources. [disclaimer] I am blessed to work for a company that contrasts many others places I have worked. Quality is everyone’s job in my business but this is the exception not the rule.[/disclaimer]
Some typical quality abuses that Online Businesses often overlook are:
Rushing inadequately tested code into production
Not having proper Beta, Test, Dev and Training environments in place
Unregulated / decentralized code building and pushing
Access to production hosts by non-essential IT staff (aka developers and bosses)
Weakly staffed Quality Assurance team or inadequate software tools
Low quality, old, or out of warranty physical hardware
Poor datacenter location(s) or inadequate facilities
Unorganized difficult to manage network or SAN
If you fall into any of these categories it is not too late. Build upon my metaphor above and paint that picture to your teammates, your boss, and anyone else that will listen. Point out your weaknesses, someone has too.
Now here is the magic bullet. MEASURE IT! We have a saying where I work “What gets measured gets improved”. Find a way to quantify quality. Start recording every single little problem in one location. Every team has there own battles to fight, make EVERYONE part of the measurement. Database folks, help desk, developers, everyone must be involved. As you track you will immediately begin to see reoccurring patters I guarantee, I’ve done it a thousand times. Assuming your team members take any pride in their work these soar spots will get fixed real fast.
Final fun step; throw a party because everyone came together to ensure that no customers will ever be left alone out in the rain staring at your sorry page; “Laterz”.