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Louise Arnold

Neilson transitions to new platform to manage peak traffic…

… thanks to a carefully planned load testing programme

We all know that online tech evolves rapidly, creating challenges for businesses that need to maintain a dominant web presence. The shelf-life of a website or mobile app is now relatively short, which makes introducing upgrades to complex ecommerce sites something of a headache.

Keeping the customer satisfied

If legacy systems aren’t cutting the mustard and are struggling to accommodate the demands of a growing business, re-platforming is often the solution. By starting from scratch, a site can be built that’s fit for purpose now and has the capacity to expand with the business, delivering a measurable ROI.

That said, switching the old platform to the new can be a worrying time hoping that teething problems don’t impact customer experience and affect conversions – especially at peak.

Case in point: Neilson

Specialist ski tour operator Neilson enjoys a reputation for quality and value. Its website was in line for re-platforming but, because functionality depends on a complex interplay between front and back-end systems, there was concern over ensuring a seamless transition, especially as the migration fell prior to prime booking season.

Load testing provides re-platforming support

In order to be certain that their new site could handle the peak traffic they were expecting and, importantly, didn’t harbour any glitches that could scupper performance, it made sense to test it in the most realistic way possible. And, with Neilson’s tech team busy developing the new site, the support and expertise available with a fully managed service was essential.

Tribe’s fully managed, cloud-based load testing service SV-Load authentically replicates customer journeys through a website, simulating real online activity and applying a load that will give the tech team the data they need to resolve performance issues or get to the bottom of errors.

Smooth running

Because SV-Load incorporates a mixture of journeys that are modelled on genuine visitor behaviour patterns, publishers can examine the performance metrics that are uniquely tailored to their own situation, delivering the most accurate results and data you can trust.

In Neilson’s case, it was able to affirm that the all-important online reservations system would be resilient, even during high-traffic periods, and gave them the confidence to make the switch without worrying about the quality of the customer experience. And with Neilson keen to initiate load testing during staging, thinkTRIBE delivered a two-stage process, testing both prior to and after launch of the new site.

Read the case study to find out about Neilson’s experience including the issues load testing uncovered on their site.

Discover more about Neilson and thinkTRIBE

Read more about how Neilson also use thinkTRIBE performance monitoring and, in particular, how they utilise the video replayer tool to minimise lost sales.

If you’d like to learn how thinkTRIBE could help your business plan a successful re-platforming project and/or prepare for success during peak, contact us to request a demo.

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