Torben Heikel Vinther is particularly meticulous when it comes to testing multiple WooCommerce sites. After all, he runs a WordPress maintenance business, Webfronten, and has several WooCommerce sites in his care.
He has never lost a sale—or had a client lose a sale—due to a broken WooCommerce site, which is evidence of his stringent testing process. But with each client site he tested previously taking 15 minutes to carry out, he was losing hours testing sites, and wasting even more time trying to diagnose where any issues he found were originating. He needed an automated way to test WooCommerce sites.
Since joining Robot Ninja, the time it takes Torben to test sites has dramatically fallen to just 1 minute per site, and he can now test all of the sites he manages automatically overnight while he sleeps. Thanks to Robot Ninja’s instant email notifications, he can be alerted to and fix any issues with client sites before they even realize there was an issue in the first place.
1. Can you tell me about your business and how you use WooCommerce?
I run a WordPress maintenance business, Webfronten, where I take care of a lot of 33 websites on a monthly basis under my Website Care Plan programme. In addition to that, I also take care of another 10 sites—spare time projects and small private sites.
My own WooCommerce store has been online for about three years. My goal is to gain enough recurring revenue so I can concentrate only on projects I really love.
2. What challenges were you experiencing prior to signing up for Robot Ninja?
A part of the monthly services I offer, I maintain WooCommerce webshops with frequent updates and tweaks, and run four daily backups. I used a lot of time manually testing to make sure that stores actually worked as they should after each update or tweak. And it wasn’t always clear where an issue was taking place so it was sometimes difficult to solve it.
3. Can you tell me about your process for testing multiple WooCommerce sites? Did you test your WooCommerce store regularly?
When I am about to update a WooCommerce store, the first thing I do is to take a full backup. I do that directly from ManageWP. Depending on how big the update is, I clone the site to a staging server and do the update there and test it afterward.
As part of my testing, I use Robot Ninja to be sure that the crucial parts of the store are functioning. When the test comes back OK, I do exactly the same on the live server and finish with one last test using Robot Ninja on the live store.
Before I started using, Robot Ninja I manually checked each webshop by putting a product in the basket, filled out the forms, and used a test credit card to pay for the order. Then I manually checked if the order had worked properly, both on the user side and admin side. Finally, I had to clean up my test ensuring that nothing was left behind. It usually took 15 minutes per site. Now I can test a single site in about 1 minute, and even do it automatically overnight for all of the WooCommerce sites I maintain.
4. Can you tell me about an instance when a store broke? How did you find out it wasn’t working as expected? Did you lose sales? Can you describe the outcome?
Luckily, I haven’t had big problems with the stores I maintain, but sometimes I’ve had issues with a cookie banner disturbing the user’s buying process. In those cases, Robot Ninja sends me an error report with a screenshot of the cookie banner. I can then easily fix the problem and run Robot Ninja one more time to determine whether the store is working and make sure everything is fine. So no, I—or my clients—haven’t lost any sales due to a broken store.
5. How did you come across Robot Ninja? Was there a particular problem that led you to go searching for a testing solution?
A friend of mine who also runs a WordPress maintenance business told me about Robot Ninja. I was complaining about how much time I was spending on testing and how I wished there was a more systemized process for it. And that is one of the most important things I love about Robot Ninja—that it runs a very streamlined testing process for me every single day.
6. How did you find the onboarding process when you joined Robot Ninja? Can you describe your experiences when dealing with support? Did they meet your expectations?
The onboarding went well, but I had some issues in the beginning where Robot Ninja couldn’t see the products. But that was due to a complex setup on my site so that is nothing I can blame Mr. Robot for 😃
The problem was quickly solved, not by changing my setup, but by editing some of the selectors in Robot Ninja’s settings. The Selectors section is awesome! And whenever I need help support is only a few clicks away. The support team is very good at following up on issues and helping to resolve problems.
7. How has Robot Ninja helped you save time and increase productivity? How has Robot Ninja changed your workflow for testing multiple WooCommerce sites?
My maintenance workflow has become much more streamlined and effective since I started using Robot Ninja. It can sometimes be a bit stressful having the responsibility of maintaining other people’s stores, so everything that can help me with that is money well-spent. And when I save time, at the same time it’s almost too good to be true!
8. How has Robot Ninja’s ability to test multiple WooCommerce stores at the same time helped you with taking care of so many different websites?
It had helped me tremendously! Now I can test many sites in a row. For example, when I upgrade plugins or WooCommerce. Therefore, I’m able to build trust with clients because I can show them my stringent workflow for testing their WooCommerce website. I’ve scheduled Robot Ninja to test the sites I maintain every night and if there’s a problem I am the first one to know. So clients may even not notice there’s a problem before I have fixed it 😃
9. It’s great that you haven’t experienced any issues with client sites! You must be very meticulous you in your testing. Do you feel Robot Ninja’s automated testing enables you to continue being thorough when testing multiple WooCommerce sites?
Absolutely!
10. What would you say to someone sitting on the fence about signing up for Robot Ninja?
The price you pay to have Robot Ninja test your WooCommerce sites every day is so small compared to the value it creates. I use Robot Ninja as a sales parameter for new leads. I think it is a no-brainer. I would recommend all store owners to use it—or let me do it for them, of course. 😃
For more on how Robot Ninja has helped WordPress agencies automate and speed up the testing multiple WooCommerce sites, check out Case Study: How Nuclear Ape is Using Robot Ninja to Automate Client Checkout Testing.