How often have you heard engineers plead for stability sprints, only to be met with a leadership team or other engineers more eager to roll out new features than address the myriad of issues your current application is fraught with? This is a common struggle in tech teams across the world, where the drive for innovation sometimes eclipses the need for stability.
However, empirical evidence suggests that customer experience issues — such as crashing apps, broken user flows, and slow load times — could be significantly impacting your business outcomes.
Stability issues are elusive creatures. Despite the efforts of dedicated QA teams, these problems continue to plague software because of the variety of devices, languages, and platforms in use today. But it’s not just the elusive nature of these issues that make them a challenge, it’s also the difficulty in quantifying their impact on the user experience.
unitQ artificial intelligence
Here’s where the unitQ Impact Analysis tool comes into play.
With our AI-powered Impact Analysis feature, organizations can learn what impacts fixing an issue will have on KPIs like 1-star reviews, support tickets, brand sentiment and more before taking action. Best of all, our Impact Analysis tool automatically surfaces user-generated issues, what we call “Quality Monitors,” that will have the most impact on product quality if fixed.
unitQ artificial intelligence comprehends the sheer scale of stability issues, too. Impact Analysis empirically demonstrates that stability issues significantly affect user retention, contribute to 1-star reviews, and inflate support ticket numbers. It’s no longer just a hunch that stability problems exist and cause damage — we have concrete proof of their blast radius.
Why prioritize stability sprints?
First, consider your user experience. Frequent crashes, lags, or dysfunctional features not only frustrate your users but also erode trust in your product. Poor stability translates to poor user experiences, and those experiences are shared in reviews and ratings that potential new users rely on when choosing your product. This directly impacts your user acquisition and retention.
Secondly, think about your support team. A substantial percentage of support tickets are being submitted due to stability issues. By addressing these problems proactively, you not only improve the user experience but also reduce the workload on your support team. This, in turn, allows them to concentrate on more complex issues that require their attention.
Finally, the matter of company reputation. It’s simple: Stable, reliable product quality contributes to a positive brand image. Conversely, poor product quality tarnishes your brand’s reputation, making it harder to attract new customers and retain existing ones.
Investing in stability sprints is not an expenditure, but an investment. It’s an investment in your product’s reliability, in your user experience, and in your brand’s reputation.
Prioritize stability over innovation?
Here’s the critical point: The question is not whether to prioritize stability or innovation, but rather how to strike the right balance between the two. Acknowledging the benefits of stability doesn’t mean we should stop adding new features to our products.
Innovation drives progress. It attracts new customers, retains existing ones, and keeps a product competitive. New features respond to changing user needs, market trends, and technological advancements. Best of all, unitQ artificial intelligence automatically surfaces feature requests from customers without you having to conduct focus groups, surveys or manually pour through user feedback.
So, when planning sprints, it’s important to allocate time for both new features and stability. This not only keeps your product evolving but also ensures the existing product functions smoothly. A well-maintained and stable product can actually accelerate the successful implementation and adoption of new features. After all, what use is an exciting new feature if the fundamental user experience is tarnished by stability issues?
Lessons learned
The development of new features should take into account the lessons learned from previous stability issues. By understanding what caused past issues, teams can proactively avoid making the same mistakes, ensuring the new features are not only innovative but also reliable.
It’s also worth noting that stability sprints can often lead to innovation in unexpected ways. By diving deep into the mechanics of existing features to fix issues, engineers may find opportunities for improvement that would otherwise be overlooked.
Stability and innovation equals success
Clearly, stability sprints are vital. However, they don’t exist to suppress innovation. Rather, they support it. They ensure that the ground is solid for new features to be built upon. Stability sprints maintain the credibility of your product, enabling users to trust in your new features. It’s a balancing act that leads to increased user retention, improved reviews, and reduced support tickets.
So remember, striking a balance between stability and innovation is the path to sustainable, long-term success.
About unitQ
With unitQ customer feedback software, you can discover quality issues at the same time as your users. Know what product launches, releases or evergreen features are causing the most bugs or support tickets. Drill into the root causes of these issues by source, platform, device, customer segment and more.
Our AI centralizes feedback from all feedback sources and automatically groups it into thousands of granular categories to help organizations discover what matters most to users — all in real time.
Customer-centric companies like Spotify, Bumble, Pinterest and HelloFresh rely on unitQ for actionable insights to drive growth, reduce churn and build brand loyalty. Want to see how your organization compares to others? Get your free unitQ Score or book a unitQ demo today!
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Christian Wiklund is unitQ CEO.
