We all know that online testing is supposed to make life easier, right? It should save time, streamline processes, and ensure accuracy. But what happens when your testing software ends up making things worse? In our article about online testing issues, we covered general challenges education institutions face in online testing. Now, it’s time to talk about other businesses that use online testing for IT training or employees’ skills evaluation.
Surprisingly, many organizations end up wasting time, money, and energy because of inefficient testing solutions. If an outdated or inflexible testing system is in place, businesses may face higher administrative costs, overwhelmed support teams, and test integrity issues – all of which impact the bottom line.
But fret not! Examarius is here to save the day! So, let’s dive into these hidden costs and explore how Examarius Online Test System can help you to avoid them.
1. Administrative Overload and Productivity Loss
Let’s be real. If your testing software isn’t intuitive, you are probably spending hours just setting up, organizing, and tweaking exams. For example, when you need to create tests manually, this often involves setting up each question individually, categorizing them, formatting them, and making sure everything is aligned just right. It becomes a tedious task that eats up precious time. Worse, if you need to update or modify a test, you are looking at more hours of work on your hands.
A well-optimized online testing process should be efficient, but many organizations still rely on manual processes for test creation, candidate assignment, and results management. This often leads to excessive labor costs and lost productivity.
Example
A corporate training provider spends over 20 hours per month manually setting up tests across multiple departments. The process involves:
- Formatting and structuring questions individually;
- Assigning candidates manually;
- Copying and pasting questions between different assessments.
By the end of the year, this amounted to over 240 hours of admin work, translating to thousands of dollars in labor costs, and the business will be struggling with the following:
- Higher operational costs due to excessive administrative time;
- Reduced productivity, as employees focus on manual tasks instead of strategic work;
- Increased risk of human error in test setups.
How Examarius Solves This Issue
Depending on the features and modifications required, Examarius can make test creation a breeze with an intuitive interface, reusable question banks, and bulk import options. For instance, let’s say you have a pool of 100 questions. With Examarius Question Bank, you can select questions from the pool, import them in bulk, and organize them into exams automatically. You can even save question sets and reuse them in future exams. By eliminating the need for repetitive tasks, you can save up to 50% of the time you’d otherwise spend on admin work.
Thus, as a result, you can get the following:
- Automated test management that eliminates the need for manual formatting and scheduling;
- Reusable question banks that allow tests to be created once and used multiple times;
- Bulk import and candidate auto-assignment that significantly reduce administrative workload.
With automated workflows, businesses can cut test management time by 50%, leading to lower costs and increased efficiency.
Read Also Examarius Update (1.01.03): Announcing the New Question Bank Feature for Your Online Test System!
2. High Support Costs Due to Poor User Experience
A clunky interface equals a ton of frustrated users, don’t you agree? Just think about it. If your test-takers can’t easily navigate the platform, they will get stuck on basic tasks, like logging in, navigating through the exam, or submitting answers. For example, a user might spend 15 minutes trying to figure out how to start the test because the interface isn’t clear. Multiply that by hundreds of users, and suddenly you are dealing with a flood of support tickets. Each ticket requires staff time, which costs your company money.
So, it’s difficult to argue that an ineffective testing platform often leads to user confusion, generating an increase in support requests and troubleshooting efforts. This translates into higher operational costs and reduced test completion rates.
Example
A global HR certification provider received hundreds of support tickets per week due to:
- A complex user interface that made navigation difficult;
- Unclear submission processes leading to errors in test results;
- Poorly structured instructions, causing repeated test attempts.
The support team spent nearly 30% of their time resolving these basic user issues, requiring additional staff and increasing operational costs. As a result, business struggled with:
- Increased support staffing requirements and costs;
- Reduced test completion rates due to user frustration;
- Lower operational efficiency as IT teams handle repetitive issues.
How Examarius Solves This Issue
With Examarius, everything is designed with user-friendliness in mind. The platform is intuitive, which means your users can get started quickly without wasting time on instructions or troubleshooting. You won’t need to worry about endless support requests because the platform just makes sense. Plus, it reduces the need for extra training, which means lower costs and better user satisfaction.
For instance, if a user can easily navigate through a test, start, and stop at their convenience, and understand the instructions on their own, they are much more likely to have a positive experience without needing support. With Examarius Online Test System, you will be able to see that:
- A user-friendly interface eliminates confusion;
- Intuitive workflows ensure candidates navigate the test without assistance;
- A seamless test submission process minimizes errors and failed attempts.
By reducing support tickets by up to 40%, businesses can lower staffing costs and enhance overall user satisfaction.
Read Also How to Design Effective Multiple-Choice Questions for Computer Science Exams
3. Security Risks and Compliance Issues
A weak testing platform isn’t just a headache – it is a huge security risk. Consider this: in an exam where cheating is not punished (or even unknowingly facilitated by the system), candidates might swap answers or even impersonate each other.
For example, imagine an employee paying some random person to take their online test. Or even worse, if the exam platform lacks proper encryption and a data breach happens, sensitive personal data of test-takers might be exposed, leading to serious legal and financial consequences. Thus, a lack of security measures exposes organizations to compliance violations, financial penalties, and reputational damage.
Example
An IT certification provider discovered a widespread test fraud issue, including:
- Test-takers using screen recording software to share answers;
- Unauthorized individuals taking tests on behalf of employees;
- Unsecured data storage, leading to sensitive information leaks.
To address these issues, the organization had to re-administer exams, implement security upgrades, and manage legal risks, which may result in a 150% increase in testing-related costs. Besides that, it led the company to the following issues:
- Security breaches that can result in regulatory fines and legal action;
- Test fraud that damage assessment credibility and certification value;
- Data security failures that erode user trust and increase compliance risks.
How Examarius Solves This Issue
Examarius has a myriad of possibilities in customizing the online testing system the way you need to have your back with video conference, role-based access controls, or encryption to keep exams secure and data safe. For example, examiners can use the Video Conference feature along with lockdown browsers to prevent impersonation during exams. Plus, role-based access controls ensure the test data remains secure, protecting both the integrity of your exams and your users’ private information.
Thus, by using a secure platform like Examarius, it is possible to:
- Protect your business from fraud, your reputation from harm, and users data from unauthorized access;
- Safeguard an organization’s financial and reputational integrity;
- Prevent costly breaches and compliance violations.
4. Poor Data Insights and Missed Business Opportunities
What is the point of testing if you can’t pull valuable insights from it? Many older platforms come with limited or clunky reporting features, meaning you have to manually dig through data and struggle with inaccurate reports. Let’s say you need to analyze the results of a recent exam to identify which questions were too difficult or where candidates struggled. If your platform doesn’t offer smart analytics, you will be forced to sift through individual scores and comments, taking up hours of your time.
Without detailed test performance analytics, organizations lack the insights needed to improve training programs, optimize hiring decisions, and ensure compliance.
Example
A financial services company used a basic testing system that:
- Provided only pass/fail results, offering no insight into knowledge gaps;
- Lacked performance tracking over time, making it difficult to measure improvement;
- Required manual data compilation, slowing down decision-making.
As a result, compliance-related knowledge gaps went undetected, leading to regulatory fines due to improperly trained employees. Also, the business faced:
- Poor reporting capabilities that limit data-driven decision-making;
- Lack of insights that results in ineffective employee training;
- Slow or manual data analysis, which leads to delayed strategic planning.
How Examarius Solves This Issue
Examarius offers real-time, automated reporting with actionable insights that can even be customized into more advanced analytics. This means you can pull reports in just a few clicks. Want to see how candidates performed on specific sections of the exam? With Examarius Online test System, you can instantly generate detailed breakdowns of performance, pinpoint areas of improvement, and make data-driven decisions.
For example, you could use Examarius’ reporting feature to see that a specific question consistently caused confusion for test-takers. That insight can help you to adjust future exams or training content to make sure everyone is on the same page. No more manually compiling data or guessing what to improve, only:
- Real-time analytics dashboards that track individual and group performance;
- AI-powered insights that identify knowledge gaps automatically;
- Customizable reports that help the business to optimize its training programs.
This way, organizations leveraging data-driven testing insights can improve employee performance, reduce compliance risks, and enhance training effectiveness.
Read Also Modernizing Business Tools: Building Data Visualization and Reporting Applications with React
5. Limited Scalability and Business Growth Constraints
If your platform can’t keep up as your organization grows, you are in trouble. Performance issues, downtime, and angry users are just a few of the headaches you will face if your online testing system doesn’t scale. For example, imagine your test platform is running smoothly for a small group, but when you need to scale it to hundreds of users, the software starts crashing, and test-takers are unable to submit their exams. Not only does that lead to frustrated users, but it can cost your company big time, both in terms of reputation and lost productivity.
A testing system that cannot scale efficiently results in performance bottlenecks, system crashes, and increased IT expenses when a company expands.
Example
A small organization expanded its online certification program from 50 users to 200, but its testing platform:
- Crashed frequently under high traffic;
- Delayed test results, affecting employee promotions;
- Required expensive IT workarounds to handle increased demand.
As a result, these challenges led to higher IT costs, reduced efficiency, and employee dissatisfaction.
- System downtime directly affects revenue and business continuity;
- Slow test processing impacts hiring, promotions, and employee training;
- Expensive IT adjustments lead to unexpected costs.
How Examarius Solves This Issue
Examarius is built to grow with you, which is why the system is able to have an unlimited amount of users. Whether you are managing a handful of test-takers or hundreds of them, the platform is designed to handle increasing demand. So, whether your user base is growing, or you are running a big exam with many participants, Examarius ensures a seamless experience without any hiccups. It automatically scales to accommodate new users and larger volumes of data without slowing down. If required, with Examarius, you can easily get:
- Cloud-based scalability that supports organizations of any size;
- Auto-adjusting infrastructure that ensures stable performance under high demand;
- Flexible test management , which accommodates high-volume assessments.
By choosing a scalable testing solution, organizations can avoid system failures, reduce IT costs, and support long-term business growth.
Conclusions
Hidden inefficiencies in your online testing platform don’t just cause frustration, they eat into your bottom line. Every inefficiency in the online testing process results in higher operational expenses, security risks, and lost productivity. Therefore, businesses that invest in an optimized, scalable, and secure testing platform can significantly reduce costs and improve efficiency.
At the end of the day, efficiency saves you both time and money. No more wasted hours, no more risks, and no more headaches. Ready to stop wasting resources and level up your online testing? Contact us and let’s talk about how Examarius can make your exam process faster, more secure, and way more efficient.