Quality Assurance (QA) is often seen as a luxury; something that can be trimmed when budgets are tight. In some cases, it’s even an afterthought. But the absence of QA can often lead to costly mistakes, dissatisfied customers, and ultimately, a tarnished brand reputation. 

Here’s how you can make a compelling case to your higher-ups about the importance of QA, regardless of budget constraints:

Start with the immediate benefits:

• Discuss how QA Speeds Development: QA provides a comprehensive diagnostic of the health and functionality of a website, making sure every piece works together in unison. This allows developers to focus on new features without compromising the overall UX; a win-win for your brand and your customers.

• The Cost of Poor Quality: Show the potential costs of releasing a product (landing page, app, ad, etc) without proper QA. Use an industry case study, such as last year’s Tesla oversight that forced a recall of 54,000 vehicles because new software failed to stop their vehicles. This illustrates how defects discovered post-release can be exponentially more expensive to fix than those caught during the QA process.

• Use Data to Your Advantage: Show how QA has positively impacted projects in the past, or how it could have prevented past missteps. This could include metrics on customer satisfaction, reduction in post-release bugs, and the overall improvement in product quality.

• Suggest Cost-Effective QA Solutions: Automation tools and frameworks can be easily scaled as projects get bigger providing huge cost benefits your boss is sure to like. 

• Emphasize Customer Satisfaction: Explain the connection between QA and customer satisfaction. A product with too many bugs can lead to negative reviews and a decrease in customer trust, which can be devastating for sales and long-term brand loyalty.

Move into some of the longer-term benefits:

• Showcase the Competitive Edge QA brings: A robust QA process can give your company an edge over competitors by ensuring a more reliable and user-friendly product. Quality differentiates a good product from a great one, the only way to ensure high quality is through QA testing.

• Present QA as a Risk Management Strategy: By investing in QA, the company is safeguarding against the risks of product failure. In addition, QA can prevent legal issues from happening due to non-compliance and the costs associated with addressing these problems.

• Propose a Scalable QA Approach: Propose a scalable QA approach that starts small but can grow with the project. This could involve starting with the most critical features and expanding the QA process as the project progresses.

• Advocate for Long-Term Benefits: A more stable product, fewer customer support calls, and a stronger foundation for future development are important long-term benefits of good QA that executives will consider.

Convincing leadership to invest in QA is about demonstrating its value as an integral part not just of the development process, but the company as a whole. When you add up the potential costs of neglecting QA, the brand benefits of a quality product, and the long-term gains for the company, you can make a strong case for why QA should not merely be a necessity, but a priority, even when budgets are tight. 

QA is a critical investment in a product’s success and a company’s future. My QA team at STAUFFER has enhanced and optimized the utility of organizations’ online platforms for over a decade and we can provide answers for yours as well. Schedule a consultation today
Additional resources: I recently sat down with the creator of Reflect, Fitz Nowlan, to discuss the benefits of having a robust QA team and how his QA automation tool can be a lifesaver for those looking to provide a lot of QA capability with minimal resources. For more, read our interview here.