Hey, What’s Up, Hello!
Thanks for being a part of our growing Beta Community. It’s come a long way over the last few years and we’re so excited to have you along for the journey. Check out what we’ve been up to!
New Kids on the Block
Since January 1 of this year, we’ve added 4,512 new members to the Beta Community- up 36% from last year! We want to give a big welcome to our new Beta Community members. So happy to have you along for the ride!
Who runs the world? (aka the Beta Community)
Girls! Well, two of us. We Beta Community Managers exist to escalate and respond to seller feedback, troubleshoot behavior, and escalate bugs to the appropriate beta manager. When you post your product experience in the Beta Community, we want you to trust in us and in turn, we want to ensure change. Feel free to look us up (@kellyj and @nika) and say “hey” or share any ideas you have. We’re here to help YOU.
Hot Topics:
Square Banking 🏦
On July 20th, Square launched Square Banking, “a suite of financial products purpose-built to help small business owners easily manage their cash flow and get more out of their hard-earned money.” Your feedback, questions, and excitement were well received in the Beta Community. One of our Beta sellers, @hairbyamy, is a self employed Cosmetologist and had this to say about Square Savings: “I am super excited about this Square Savings! The convenience of having it easily accessible, connected to my Square account...makes it easy for myself!” We love to hear it, Amy! If you’re in the Council Bluffs area, check her out! Feel free to post any additional Square Banking feedback here.
How often do you check the Beta Community? 👀
The Beta Community has changed immensely over the last year from a user experience standpoint. Overall, we received good feedback from multiple surveys and beta sellers enjoyed the changes. Last month we asked How often do you check the Beta Community? A few of you said you find it difficult to navigate and that you have difficulty finding certain topics. If you share this sentiment or have additional feedback that you’d like to share, post your thoughts here. We’ll be following up with another survey with some UI changes to come.
What’s happenin’?
Product Advisory Boards 📝
Product Advisory Boards now exist to help bridge the gap between you and our Product teams. These boards will be used as portals for you to communicate directly with Product Managers of specific teams in an effort to build relationships, gather your feedback early on, and help pair you with new products to test. Keep your eyes peeled for invites to our panels in the coming weeks.
Last Week Today with the Beta Community
We’re not John Oliver, but we try to keep you as entertained as possible with our weekly additions of “Last Week Today”. You’ll be able to see an overview of current and upcoming betas, events, and other announcements.
Feature Request Revamp
If you’ve been here for a while then you know that Feature Request posts in the Seller Community are a beast. We’re looking to provide solutions to our teams to get your requests in the right hands and in turn implement the changes you need for your business. We’re working on a process that allows you to select the product you wish to request an update for, and provide your use case so we can understand the WHY’s around this change. Why is WHY important? It helps us understand the changes to make, and how to prioritize these changes impactfully for all businesses. We’re excited to launch this in the upcoming months. For now- please use our Feature Request Boards to add your requests.
So you think you can test?
Just like some people think they can dance, there are sellers out there who are equally just as eager to test betas. But before you can dance, you need to stretch. If you’re on the fence about joining or engaging in further tests, here are some things we look for in a beta seller:
- Use the feature - It’s as simple as that, check out the feature as soon as you can when it’s available.
- Share your Feedback - We want to hear it, good, bad, and anything in between. We want to hear about the setup process, your employee and customer experiences and overall experience. We encourage you to share your use case when giving feedback. How are you using this feature in your day to day business?
- Report any bugs/issues - When you notice something isn’t working as you expect, let us know as soon as you can. Note any specifics you can, think about the steps you take before the issue happens, what type of device you are using, specific transitions, employees, when the issue began, etc. Take a video if you can, videos help lead to faster solutions.
- How to contact us - The best place for reaching the Beta Team or other Beta testers is the Beta Community. Share your feedback, ask questions and report any Beta feature related issues here. OR, if you prefer email you can email your Beta questions to [email protected]. But remember, our community is the quickest and easiest way to connect with our team. Square’s phone support or messaging teams will NOT have the needed knowledge for support with Beta tests. Likewise the Square Beta team isn’t the best resource for support unrelated to beta projects.
- Participate in our surveys - Most beta tests involve a survey towards the end of the project. Surveys are typically ten questions or less and ask specific questions about the test. These are used to decide if the feature is ready to launch and help guide Square towards changes or improvements we should make in the future.
What’s testing now?
- Pay with Cash with Square Online