Simien

Notes > Soft launch or hard landing?

Google seems to like the Beta phase, Gmail has been a Beta for nearly a year now, and one begins to wonder when it will be out? But there’s a lesson in this.

Google seems to like the Beta phase, Gmail has been a Beta for nearly a year now, and one begins to wonder when it will be out? But there’s a lesson in this.

I can’t count the number of times a client has given a public release date for a website project without consulting the developers the “we have to go live by X-date because we put out a press release” line is one that is guaranteed to bring a groan from the design and technical teams.

Soft launches and beta releases aren’t always possible, we can live with that but the reality is you never know how well a site is working until it actually starts working. Letting it out slowly or letting a selected group of ‘friends’ have access and starting using the site is the best way of seeing if the thousands of decisions and assumptions that went into the build actually stack up.

This isn’t an excuse for missed deadlines or for a lackadaisical approach to project management, they need to be spot on, but building in a beta phase before announcing to the world that the new site is live one of the best ways of making sure that when you turn up the volume the speakers aren’t going to blow.

But it doesn’t stop there. The customer isn’t the only audience the site needs promoting to, it needs to be promoted to an explained to employees and agents as well. If sales or customer service don’t know what the site does how does it help them? Launch the site internally, make the effort to get buy in from your staff, show them how it can help make their lives, and those of their customers, easier.

15 Sep | Filed in Articles