Applause Recognizes Customers Demonstrating Digital Excellence

Every quarter, the Applause Customer Excellence (ACE) Awards honor customers who are delivering exceptional digital experiences. Most businesses recognize that a digital-first mindset has become essential for success; many of our customers intensified their efforts to create seamless customer experiences and apps that consistently satisfy their users.

Applause’s account management teams nominate clients they see striving to deliver outstanding customer experiences, then a panel of software development and testing experts choose finalists based on the effectiveness of testing programs, use of best practices, and impact to end customers.

Additional ACE categories and winners are announced quarterly, and each award winner will be eligible for the top Digital Quality Excellence Award, chosen by our community of customers and testers, as well as industry thought leaders.

The winners for Q4 2020

Excellence in Connected Home Devices: SharkNinja

SharkNinja, an innovator in the housewares industry, works with Applause to ensure customer experiences that consistently exceed expectations. Applause evaluates SharkNinja's smart vacuums supported by iOS and Android apps, testing pre-production devices and beta firmware/software to fix bugs before release. Testers also assess connectivity with devices such as Google Home and Alexa and see how the user experience stacks up against competitors. Daily tests of approximately 80 vacuums offer SharkNinja on-demand feedback.

“Working with Applause, we're able to test our products in real homes, gaining feedback on how Shark® robot vacuums perform in a variety of households,” said Lori Archibald, Director, Product Development/Shark Robots. “We get insight into how effectively they cover different square footages and floor types, and how well they work in homes with and without children or pets. The Applause community captures critical insight on user experience that guides us in our product development process."

Excellence in Digital Payment Experiences: eBay

To ensure seamless buying experiences in 190 countries, global commerce leader eBay leverages the Applause community to test functionality and accessibility. When eBay launched a new payment platform, working with Applause was a logical choice to guarantee the new payment experience exceeded customer expectations across a variety of different geographic regions.

The depth and breadth of the Applause community allows eBay to roll out new products and releases with confidence, knowing users will have the easy, intuitive experiences they have come to expect. Applause helps eBay meet the challenge of serving customers in a variety of different markets using many combinations of browsers, devices and currencies.

Excellence in eCommerce Innovation: Etsy

A global marketplace that allows shoppers to find and purchase unique handmade and vintage goods, Etsy serves nearly 70 million buyers in almost every country around the world. Applause runs consistent exploratory and regression testing on the Buying on Etsy app. When the global marketplace’s internal team was struggling to regularly update the test suite for the app, they turned to dedicated resources from Applause to keep the test suite current.

Working with Applause enables Etsy to deliver excellence in ecommerce so buyers can easily find and purchase through the app, allowing Etsy to achieve levels of quality internal resources alone could not achieve.

Excellence in Mobile Banking CX: Citi

As a global bank that provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial services and products, Citi understands the value of efficient, effective customer support. Citi relies on Applause to test the company’s interactive voice recognition (IVR) to ensure a smooth experience for customers calling the support center. Applause has provided competitive analysis and tolerance testing as well as guidance on the overall user experience.

The feedback testers provide on IVR systems allows Citi to deliver great customer support and operate the call center efficiently, even during spikes in call volume. The account team praised Citi’s efforts to make sure their customers can easily use the IVR to get the answers and assistance they need.

Excellence in Digital Telecom: Swisscom

Swisscom is Switzerland’s leading telecoms company and one of its leading IT companies. The company began working with Applause in 2015 and has expanded the relationship to support a range of testing for its new product offerings. Applause currently provides functional, user experience, and accessibility testing for various teams across Swisscom, including blue TV, enterprise connectivity, and omnichannel customer experience for both residential and business clients.

Michael Krause, Agile Coach – Built-In Quality for Swisscom says, “We rely on Applause to help us with a wide variety of exploratory tests, including streaming quality, mobile applications, user interface, and accessibility. The Applause services have helped us to shape agile testing and quality engineering practices along our transformation journey, continuously gathering valuable feedback in our agile product development approach.”

Please join us in congratulating our new ACE winners on their accomplishments and their commitment to creating exceptional digital experiences.

Get tips on delivering excellent digital quality from past award winners in the webinar below: