Wikipedia says that beta means ‘a website or online project either in pre-release, during testing or shortly after release to the public’ and “Beta testing allows the software to undergo usability testing with users who provide feedback, so that any malfunctions these users find in the software can be reported to the developers and fixed.”
And that’s half right for us. The mobile network bit of our offer will work right from the start – placing calls, sending texts, collecting voicemail, accessing data etc. We’re running on O2’s network, so you’ll experience the same quality with giffgaff that you do with them.
For giffgaff, ‘beta’ means we’re still building things and we’re looking for feedback on things that are already there, like our pricing, our people powered customer service, the rebate etc. We are still building APIs that make us a bit different like billing visualisations (your bill in a pie chart for instance), the rebate thermometer that tells you how much rebate you’re on track for at any given point, an API that aggregates hot topics on the blog and the forum, and more.
Beta testing is common practice on the web, but not among big mobile networks, who would rather spend a fortune on research and internal testing to get everything perfect before launching. As we operate a low cost business model, and only have 14 employees, we don’t really have that option.
While we’re in beta, we need as much feedback as possible. That could be detail on our systems (technical errors or usability flaws) or general comments on our proposition (a better way to explain our pricing). Actually it would be great to get ideas of things people would love from their mobile network, and we’ll try to build them, or ask you to help us.
Let us know your thoughts for now and ideas for the future.
