The Challenge

Princess Auto, a farm, industrial, garage, hydraulics, and surplus item retailer, has seen a lift in eCommerce sales over the past two years. However, they were finding it hard to detect, track, prioritize, and resolve critical bugs on their eCommerce site.

Princess Auto approached bugs like many companies do - prioritizing bugs that rose to the top for business needs, departmental requirements, because they were easy to resolve, or because they were simply easier to scope. This required utilizing multiple resources (developers, QA, Business Analysts) to determine cost estimates on potential fixes.

This subjective approach to fix bugs resulted in larger issues not being promptly addressed and a costly overextension of resources. The retailer saw this in their customer feedback, which revealed reports of error pages at checkout and page load delays. Ultimately, Princess Auto wanted to have a single place for visibility over all existing website issues, new sales pipeline bugs, cost estimates, and how these issues were impacting the overall user experience.

Our Approach

With the help of digital consultancy Object Edge, Princess Auto implemented and integrated Noibu - a software solution that detects, prioritizes and resolves bugs that impact revenue and conversion. The Noibu solution provided the retailer an all-encompassing system dashboard that prioritized the value of each bug upfront.

This solution enabled Princess Auto to evolve its approach from “how much will it cost to fix this issue” to the more proactive “how much will it cost if we don’t fix this issue.” With visibility to team members at both Princess Auto and Object Edge, errors were clearly defined and communicated, with less resource drain, friction, and communication missteps.

The Results

With Noibu in place, and integrated into the development and QA processes, Princess Auto can now accurately quantify the cost of bug fixes using a metrics-based approach. They are no longer using a subjective approach where their prioritization is driven by the opinions of multiple team members. The company is now able to take a holistic and more accurate approach to resolve issues that may arise within its eCommerce platform.

Princess Auto has also seen a significant decrease in negative comments from customers using the site. Bugs are now able to be quickly identified and fixed in a timely, proactive manner.

The Noibu solution helped initiate a philosophy shift within Princess Auto’s organization. The retailer has become more metrics-driven in how it resolves system issues.

“Now, it’s less about ‘I feel’ and more about ‘I know’,” continued Matthes. “We now have a data-driven approach to fixing bugs. That philosophy is important, and as we integrate it into our workflow, we’ll make it easier for our teams to know exactly what they need to do.”