Applause™ Can Test Your Dating Apps, Websites & Ideas With Real Consumers In the Real World

The Short Version: In a controlled environment, a dating app may work perfectly, but everything changes once it’s in the hands of an actual person. To identify issues and increase customer loyalty, businesses need to know how their products perform in the real world. Helping in this effort, Applause manages a community of over 250,000 software testers to provide feedback on digital products used on a range of devices in locations around the world. They assess the product’s usability and accessibility to give popular services, like Grindr, an accurate picture of how their audience uses the software. Applause’s expert crowdtesting encourages innovators to stay in touch with their users and increase online engagement. Applause provides testing solutions to find out how fast an app loads on foreign soil or how a website looks on more than 2.4 million real devices worldwide.

When you run a dating app, problems are bound to crop up. No matter how cutting-edge it is, when your software gets out in the field, it inevitably misbehaves — but ascertaining why can be tricky.

Sometimes, the error is location specific or only happening on a certain device. For instance, customer service may be flooded by reports of a faulty integration with Facebook in a certain area, but, unless the tech team goes into the field, they won’t see the same glitch on their end. If you don’t figure out what’s going wrong quickly, your users will soon jump ship to another dating app. So, what do you do?

You could enlist the help of a crowdtesting service like Applause. This company will immediately unleash an army of people in hundreds of locations to test the dating app and make sure it’s working properly — or identify where it’s not working properly. That way, you can run a more user-friendly dating app or website for singles everywhere and every time.

Founded in 2007 and launched in 2008, Applause came about right when mobile was exploding and grew by giving tech companies a fuller understanding of the user’s point of view — primarily through top-notch functionality testing and market research.

Applause testers provide companies with a real-world perspective on how digital products work.

Over the years, Applause has helped more than 3,000 brands, including leading names in the dating industry, become more responsive to the needs of users. Their professional in-the-wild testing gives insight into the consumer’s product experience and helps companies strive toward optimal functionality for all users — no matter where they are.

“If you can think of a brand or startup, we’ve probably worked with them,” said Pete Blair, the Vice President of Marketing at Applause. “It’s not a secret that software doesn’t always work the way the developers intended. We’re simply helping companies identify how people actually use the apps and websites through real-world testing.”

In connecting digital lives and social lives, dating services need to be adaptable to gain traction internationally. Applause has people stationed across the globe — more than 250,000 professional software testers in more than 200 countries and territories — so your product can be put through its paces in as many locations as you like. Want to know how the app fares in South America? Not a problem for this global network. They can tell you how well your product translates in various cultures and how quickly it connects in remote locations.

Touting themselves as “the 360° app quality company,” Applause has worked with thousands of highly rated applications.

Applause will target your audience by using testers in the key demographics for your product, giving dating apps the ability to reach a niche market more effectively. The company’s rigorous tester surveys offer relevant information about a digital product’s accessibility and usability.

Guided by carefully crafted standards, the testers evaluate if the client’s app or website is intuitive, easy to use, and translatable to different languages.

In addition to real-world testing, Applause offers confidential security assessments that use white hat hacking to uncover potentially costly issues for digital brands.

A white hat hacker is basically a hacker who works for the good guys. This person uses his or her knowledge to break into apps, websites, and other technological properties — with the owner’s permission — and pinpoint where the product is vulnerable to attack. “They try to figure out how to break things,” Pete said, “and they go about it like a real hacker would but in a controlled and safe environment.”

This is especially important for dating apps and websites, which store personal data and intimate details for thousands of people. You can protect your users by enlisting Applause’s security experts to find the cracks before an actual hacker can undermine your database.

After an in-depth security test, Applause produces a comprehensive report with recommendations for fixes to any vulnerabilities.

“Mobile apps are the wild west,” he told us. “Security infrastructure isn’t really there because anybody can publish an app, so our hackers often find security problems in mobile that you’ll never find on a website.”

With proactive solutions, Applause helps dating brands maintain a safe, reputable, and reliable service for the online dating community.

With real testing by real people, Applause gets results. Their thorough investigations allow technological innovators to react to consumer issues more quickly and knowledgeably. On average, Applause clients are more responsive to the needs of their market because they are more informed about how the product is used day-to-day.

“Applause was a perfect fit, since they would give us real-world testing like our beta community, but they would report bugs into a dedicated platform, making it easier for us to sort through and analyze.” — Aaron Judd, VP of Technology at Blendr

According to the company’s internal data, Applause’s clients update their products 30% faster than their competitors do. This keeps users happy and coming back for more. “If you think of the arms races of staying in sync with what customers want, a big piece of that is updating,” Pete said. The Applause team supports greater functionality in digital properties because, for them, it’s all about perfecting the digital experience.

“We help providers figure out what features their users actually want and use,” he explained. “Many developers want to add more and more to the app, but there’s a tipping point where it becomes too cluttered for people.”

Applause cares about helping companies be the best they can be. Their testing services show brands how to improve their software in accordance to what users experience on over 2.4 million desktop and mobile devices.

The team knows their work can have a lasting impact on the company’s success, especially for startups. In many case studies, their clients see an uptick in customer engagement and satisfaction metrics because of reality-based feedback and solutions.

From established businesses, like eBay, to rising developers, like Sochat, Applause works with all kinds of digital services that make life easier for users across borders. “Because we work with so many innovative people, every day is different,” Pete said. “And I love that.”

Dating services have no shortage of competition out there, with a new dating app cropping up all the time. So, if you’ve got an app or website for singles, you’ll have to make sure it works superbly to satisfy a picky and demanding audience.

Applause methodically tests the security and usability of digital properties to help software developers meet user demand in an ever-changing market. Thousands of software testers provide comprehensive reports that have informed more than 3,000 businesses about how certain sites and apps perform in the real world.

Applause offers real-time feedback, bug reports, and marketing information to their clients.

“Digital is the thread that binds great customer experiences,” Pete emphasized to us. “What we do is give the real-world perspective to solution providers so they can make that new great idea into something that actually works for their customers.”

If you manage a dating app or website and want to increase the engagement of your user base, Applause can show you the way with actionable advice based on the experience of real people in hundreds of locations worldwide.