How to Choose an App Testing Company With Only 5 Steps

You start your own project on the Internet, and before it sees the light of day, you come to the conclusion that it must be tested. Now you have both the tiresome and exciting road of choosing an outsourcing vendor—the company that will handle the testing of the project.
How difficult can it be? There are indeed many web testing service providers, so it’s not difficult to find someone. However, the question arises: who exactly do I need now? Perhaps you’d rather go to a trustworthy long-term partner for the project, not the first company you can find.

Luckily, with a choice of outsourcing QA consulting companies, which you can read in detail here, there is literally a team of testers for any project. The key is to understand what sets your idea apart from others and how it influences the requirements for testers. To do that, we’ll break down the process of picking a vendor into a step-by-step guideline.

The 5 Steps to Follow

The following steps will help you decide what you expect to get as a result and how you can achieve it.

Step #1

Analyze your idea before looking for a software testing partner. You have to understand clearly what it is you want to test. Keep this in mind while working on your business plan, and make a separate sheet where you’ll fill out the necessary functionality and set the goals and technical requirements for the testing project.

If you doubt your qualification to define technical tasks clearly, just write down examples of projects you like so your web testing vendor can use them as references, not to apply these same design principles but to understand your vision.

What project characteristics should I define? It’ll be enough to comprehend the basic technologies you want to use, whether it’s testing static web pages, single-page applications, functionality, or load testing. If there are any other innovations you’d like to add to the mix, write them down as well.

Step #2

If you don’t have a web testing background or experience of previous cooperation with vendors, it’s important to define whose opinion matters to you – and could help you with a choice. If there are friends with testing experience, start by consulting them. If not – don’t worry. There are plenty of software outsourcing ratings to help you decide.

For sure, you shouldn’t rely insanely on each of the ratings. To search, you can collect a sample of 5 top ratings like Clatch or Goodfirms – these are international ratings that have already earned a reputation as reliable consultants. Next, look at the companies that are included in the lists you need (functional, usability, web, mobile, IoT testing or testing by industry, such as healthcare, e-commerce or finance).

But even here you should not contact a company that is above all: it is important to understand how such ratings are compiled. Today, more and more well-known ratings simply raise companies on any list for sponsorship fees. Skip the top of the ranking and dive straight into the middle. Here you get into an environment where other companies actually compete based on the quality of their services, their merits and the number of positive reviews from other clients.

Step #3

Assessing potential vendors, you need to determine the company’s reliability and stability. To make it easier, we prepared a checklist of questions that makes things really easy.
How big and experienced is both a testing company and their testing team? If you assess a big software testing company with a few hundred employees, don’t just assess the general company market position. Evaluate also their web testing department.

Check the company location. The market the vendor works in determines prices, testers’ qualification, the management process.

Also, think about the specifics of your future product. If it’s a complicated long-term project and you have no experience managing an outsourcing project, choosing a closer company minimizes the risks. Now through the practice of outsourcing web testing is getting more and more regular even for a complex enterprise project.

Find out the size and the composition specifics of the web testing team and discuss what resources you can get for your project. Ask if there are awards and certifications to prove the expertise. Sure, achievements are not a guarantee of smooth cooperation yet it’s a possibility to assure that you are not paying for a cat in a sack.

Step #4

Define what cooperation model you’d like to use. Many software testing outsourcing companies are fine with all the most popular models cooperation – Dedicated Team, Staff Augmentation or Fixed Price.

Discuss monitoring the testing workflow and evaluating the results. Transparency is a key to success. What can a potential vendor offer to monitor the project progress and the quality of performed work? Questions prepared in advance will give you a complete understanding of the entire format of cooperation and there will be no surprises for you during the work.

Step #5

Take the most out of portfolio. A main rule of choosing a software testing company says: ‘Show me your projects and I will tell you who you are’. That’s exactly what you need to discuss with your potential web testing partner. Look at the projects the supplier has already completed and take note of what industries they know best. Technical proficiency matters, no doubt about it, but you also want a vendor who understands the specifics of your business.

What information should your company give you in a project description? How long did a project take? How many testers and other staff were involved in the process? What methodology was used? How do they determine the efficiency of performed tasks? All information can be found in the company’s portfolio.

Conclusion

The above five-step procedure – that’s all it takes to find a good testing vendor. Don’t perceive it as a complicated task but rather as a chance to get to know your partner better. Cooperation starts with communication. Start communicating with your testing partner at these very first stages of cooperation and you’ll definitely make a good choice. Remember that you are gaining experience that no one can tell you.