Getting the most out of early access programs

7 min readOct 28, 2024

Early access programs (EAPs), also known as Beta testing are a popular way to get early feedback for a new product or features. Rather than releasing to all customers, an organisation will work closely with a small group of customers as they iterate the product or features. This approach can not only provide early customer feedback, but also mitigate the risks of exposing all customers to something that might still be a work in progress. If you’re considering running an early access program here are some things to think about.

Is an early access program the right approach?

Whilst an EAP can be a very effective approach, it’s not the right approach for everything. For example, if you want to test out a new product concept then testing a prototype with a 5–10 representative customers can be a much quicker way to get feedback. An EAP also requires customers that are willing to invest in a product or service over a prolonged period of time. More transaction products and services, such as ecommerce websites and apps are therefore not well suited to early access programs.

Choose your customers carefully

If you’ve decided that an EAP is the right approach, one of the first things you should do is determine the sort of customers you want on the program. Ideally you should be looking for:

Early adopters (as customers will need to be open to a Beta product or features).
Customers who are representative of your target customers. Afterall, you don’t want to be developing a product or features with input from people who have very different needs to your customers.
Customers who have something to gain from being part of the EAP.

The last item on the check list is very important. You want customers who will engage with the EAP and that’s not going to happen if a customer has nothing to gain from being part of it.

Start recruitment ahead of the program

Having determined the sort of customers you want to sign up it’s a good idea to kick off recruitment well ahead of the EAP. Not only can it often take longer than expected to find suitable customers, if you’re dealing with enterprise customers, or even medium sized organisations it can take weeks, even months for them to sign up, especially if they need to sign an agreement, such as an NDA (non-disclosure agreement).

Oversubscribe your program

No matter what you do some customers will drop out of your EAP. This is often due to factors outside of your control, such as a change of policy within an organisation, someone moving to a new role, or simply life getting in the way. This is why it’s a good idea to slightly oversubscribe your program. For example, if you want to get feedback from at least 25 customers you should look to recruit perhaps 30–40 so that even with a few dropouts you can still get the numbers you want.

Set clear expectations for customers

When a customer signs up for an EAP, it’s important that they know what they are signing up to. If they sign up expecting a mature product or features, with no bugs to be ironed out then there is going to be serious mis-match between their expectations and the reality of being part of an EAP.

It’s important to be very open with customers about what they can expect from the EAP, and what you will be expecting from them. For example, if you require them to regularly submit feedback, or to attend regular check-ins then this should be made clear upfront.

Provide customers with something of value

An EAP should ideally be win-win. A win for the customers taking part because they get early access to a product or feature, and a win for you because you get their feedback and input at a crucial early stage of product development. However, if what you provide for EAP customers is of little value to them, then the win is only on your side.

It’s therefore important that whatever you release as part of the EAP has sufficient value for customers, otherwise they will not engage and will inevitably drop out. Remember, even if they might not be paying you, they are still investing their own time and energy.

Utilise documentation

Very few people enjoy writing documentation. However, when it comes to EAPs documentation is your friend. By providing EAP customers with important information, such as in the form of release notes, getting started guides or troubleshooting guides you can cover common questions, issues and queries and reduce the number of support queries coming your way. Documentation is also key if you’re running an EAP with a lot of customers. Having to walk every EAP customer through the getting started process is not very scalable. Documenting the getting started process most certainly is.

Use collaboration tools

An EAP is a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with your customers. However, good collaboration is hard without good collaboration tools. Rather than relying on old fashioned emails it’s better to use dedicated collaboration tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams or a customer forum to communicate and collaborate with your EAP customers.

Agree a process for support & feedback

Given that an EAP will involve an early version of a product or features it’s highly likely that customers will require more support than usual. There are likely to be more bugs to deal with, more questions to answer and of course (hopefully) lots of feedback to respond to.

It’s therefore important to agree a process for providing EAP customers with support and for responding to feedback. You should be able to answer important questions such as:

How will feedback be reviewed?
When can an EAP customer expect a response?
Who will provide support for EAP customers?
How will bugs and issues be triaged?

Regularly check-in with customers

How do you know how EAP customers are getting on? Some will tell you, most will not. Metrics might give you some indication, but certainly not the full picture. This is why it’s important to regularly check-in with customers to find out how they are doing, to gather their feedback and to give them the opportunity to ask you any questions. If you have a relatively small number of EAP customers then setting up regular calls might be a good approach. With a larger number of customers asynchronous check-ins, such as via a regular survey might be a more scalable way to go.

Release often

Aside from releasing a half-baked, bug riddled ‘MVP’ version of a product or features (see This MVP madness must stop), the next best way to kill an EAP is to fail to regularly release updates. Regular updates help to show progress, demonstrate that the EAP is still ongoing and are of course vital for an effective build and learn feedback loop (shown below).

*Regular releases are vital for an effective feedback loop*

If an EAP product or features are not regularly updated customers can start to lose faith in their feedback having any value. After all, what’s the point of providing feedback if nothing happens off the back of it?

Proactively drive engagement

An awful lot of EAPs follow the same pattern. Customers are recruited, they sign up for the EAP and it begins with a flurry of activity. Initially customers are really engaged and as they get to use the new product, or features for the first time the feedback comes flooding in. Good progress is made as the team gather invaluable feedback and release a steady stream of updates based on what they learn.

However, as the novelty of the EAP wears off and as customers start to realise the inevitable limitations of an early product or features, engagement starts to tail off. What was once a flood of feedback is now barely a trickle.

This is why it’s really important to think about how to proactively drive customer engagement. How will you not just keep customers engaged at the start of their EAP journey, but throughout their EAP journey? For example, you could help to drive engagement by fostering an active EAP Slack community. You could do it by regularly communicating and checking in with customers. Perhaps even by providing merchandise as a way of saying ‘thank you’ for taking part.

Plan for the end of the program

All good things come to an end, and this is certainly true of an EAP. Remember the aim of an EAP is to get a product or features ready for general release, so it should have a limited life span. An EAP that goes on and on and on isn’t an EAP.

It’s important to agree on what the criteria will be for progressing to general release and to have a plan for ending the program. For example, how will you communicate the EAP coming to an end? How much notice will you give EAP customers? If you’ve provided customers with free access to an EAP product or features, will they now have to pay?

In summary

A well-run early access program (EAP) can not only be a very effective way to get early feedback for a new product or features but also to build an engaged community of early adaptors who can hopefully become vocal advocates. By following these tips, you can ensure that you get the most out of your early access programs.

Image credits

We want you photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash