How Software QA and Maintenance Can Help Customer Satisfaction & Retention

Software QA isn’t just finding and handling bugs. It’s creating first impressions for the customer. Software QA and maintenance resources are part of the overall team invested in the quality of the software product. The software team provides a timely, effective answer to client needs for user interaction and functionality as well as quality, security, and reliability. When both the customer and the development team are energized, something changes. Customers feel their vision is represented in the software. McKinsey & Co. notes that an index (“DVI”), of software team engagement with business goals, called “Developer Velocity,” showed companies in the top quarter had 55% higher innovation and 4x-5x revenue growth compared to the bottom quarter. Connection-driven software quality brings results.

Integrated Quality Shows in the Releases

Modern Software QA processes aren’t the final stage of software production, where developers “throw it over the wall” for QA to run tests on. Software quality practices and metrics run concurrently with design and development, measuring against design expectations continuously. Dynamic measures can benefit development because issues of all types are raised en route to project success, rather than appearing on a “bug list” that determines project completion and is often negotiated down to meet deadlines. The secret to this new, integrated, cooperative progress that has many SDLC names such as Agile, Extreme, Iterative, and Spiral, is simple but revolutionary: communication.

Software Quality as a Design Component

True quality processes can actually help meet deadlines rather than block them. The team, with frequent communication, can discover better ways to approach the project or essential requirements that weren’t clear at the beginning. This interactive process can produce a software product that the customer not only is satisfied with but feels the pride of ownership for.

Keeping an Eye on Specifics

Digital.ai’s 14th Annual State of Agile Report indicates that over a large sample of companies, 42% of respondents chose a dynamic Agile strategy to improve quality, 71% to accelerate Software QA delivery. Teams using dynamic processes and communicating closely can follow design goals in:

• Performance
• Security
• Reliability
• Compatibility
• Usability
• Scalability

And other areas without fragmenting and slowing the process.

Integrating Software Processes with Remote Teams

Software QA development is a global activity performed with teams at multiple company locations, nearshore software developer teams, or offshore resources many time zones away. Offshore teams were a better fit for “old school” development, where specifications were developed and shipped overseas, and the product was developed, tested, and returned at a later date. Communication was limited due to schedules, and remote teams could interpret specifications differently. Now, with more fluid SDLC models, companies are realizing how much familiar culture, language, and communication styles affect software quality and customer satisfaction.

Integrated Quality and Maintenance Relationships Keep Customer Motivation Forefront

Tightly integrated software quality and maintenance teams, with fluid communication, are now important components of Developer Velocity. As part of post-COVID-19 research, of 1000 executives surveyed, Capgemini found that 56% were planning on a remote workforce as part of their professional team, and 41% were looking at nearshore resources as a key element of their diversified teams. Companies are depending on remote software teams that are more geographically connected and culturally aligned. Nearshore software quality outsourcing is an important contributor to results that engage customer enthusiasm.