Battle tested before it reaches the counter: experimentation at Clover

Ben Schein, Director of Product Management at Clover, explains how experimentation differs when a product is a critical workplace tool for restaurants rather than a consumer app that can quietly expose users to A/B test variants. Because Clover serves more than 300,000 U.S. merchants and supports essential functions such as payments, ordering, menus, and handheld point-of-sale systems, its teams rely on structured pilots, ground-level validation, and rollout planning instead of production splits that could disrupt employees during service. Schein says the level of testing should be determined by uncertainty and potential downside, with high-risk changes to payment authorization or order-entry flows requiring extensive validation while established features such as Apple Pay may need less experimentation. He also emphasizes defining the strategic value of a test in advance, using counter metrics alongside primary measures, and seeking durable business learning rather than simple pass-fail results. Drawing on his experience at Shake Shack, he describes improving checkout funnels through contextual experiences, including clear preparation-time expectations and brand messaging during loading screens, while arguing that future AI-enabled experimentation tools will make testing more accessible but will not replace human judgment about risk, customer context, and meaningful opportunities.

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