

Why I’m Going Back To Capturing Credit Cards Upfront - gavingmiller
http://planscope.io/blog/why-im-going-back-to-capturing-credit-cards-upfront

======
gergles
Gross; you're hiding the credit card requirement until after I've made an
account.

As a customer, I would abandon your site faster than anything, no matter how
slickly you'd done the presell.

And yes, I tried making an account. It's very jarring to suddenly be hit with
a credit card wall to actually _do_ anything in the trial. A free trial where
I give you my credit card number isn't free. I don't feel this is going to
help your conversion rates.

~~~
bdunn
"A free trial where I give you my credit card number isn't free."

It is when you aren't charged for anything. It's basically a way to qualify a
(future) customer.

...Also, what paywall were you hit with when creating the account you
mentioned above? Right now, you can create an account and activate your timed
trial without entering anything in. After 11 days, I send out an email stating
"If you don't plug in your credit card soon, your account will be
deactivated."

------
bradbatt
As a consumer I hate this. If you know that you _need_ the software it isn't a
big deal to add your CC info, but if you are just trying out some different
products/services it is really annoying.

Also, I suck at completing timed trials. I sign up for a service, play with it
for a bit, and might not come back for a few weeks - usually when the trial
has expired. Having to enter credit card information is exactly one of the
roadblocks that causes me to abandon ship and put it in the "This is a pain
and taking more time than I thought, so I will just do this later." category.

So, while I don't think you are losing any customers that already know they
need your service, you may be losing some who _might_ need your service, but
aren't sure yet.

The best onboarding process gets me signed up as quickly as possible (you are
clearly doing that) - and takes me through an interactive tutorial (i.e.
"Enter your project name here") where you are actually entering information
into the system, not just completing some demo that isn't useful.

Show users how to do something useful with your service as quickly as possible
and you will have their attention. The CC info will be secondary - they will
happily enter it when the time comes!

~~~
bdunn
This is exactly what I think I'm proposing to do. If you come across Planscope
and think, "Interesting. I'd like to play around with this" you can - quickly
- and with no time requirements.

But once you have a real life project that you're getting paid for, then you
come back and kick off your formal trial.

~~~
akassover
I'm curious how this goes (so please post a write-up when you have data). We
(www.agentmethods.com) collect credit cards up front exactly to avoid that
"create the account and forget about it" situation. The clock is ticking so
our trials are serious.

We experimented with removing the credit card at signup and it killed our
conversion rate from trial to happy paying customer.

We now invest a significant amount of support resources into trial users which
we wouldn't be able to do if we opened the floodgates to every uncommitted
tire kicker.

------
reillyse
I insist on credit cards upfront on moustachecoffeeclub.com I am sending
people a free physical bag of coffee though that costs me around $12 so it's
very important that I convert people. But yes, lots of advantages to this
approach not least getting rid of time wasters, who always seem to be the most
annoying "customers" on the planet :)

I think I might do a post sometime about all the fun ways I've sacked my
annoying customers. Keeps me interested anyway :)

------
kintamanimatt
This appears to be a dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6600137](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6600137)
from a few hours ago. However, it's a fantastic article.

------
dchuk
It's amazing how HN, a community supposedly filled with entrepreneurs, is so
opposed to anything marketing related.

Software doesn't sell itself guys...honest, insightful posts about the
reasoning behind business decisions that directly affect a product's bottom
line are really important and should not be dismissed because they contain
"marketing speak".

------
eps
Brennan, if you are reading this, get rid of that bloody "powered by drip"
widget in the bottom right corner. It is annoying as hell that it can't be
fully removed from the screen.

~~~
bdunn
Done :-) It works wonders off normal organic traffic, I'll enable it again
after the HN rush dies off.

------
rhubarbquid
-He lost me at the phrase "onboard new users"\- ;-)

edit: I rescind my comment, I'm not adding anything useful to the discussion
here. I still hate the term, but I guess there's not anything better.

~~~
pc86
..Why?

~~~
rhubarbquid
That sort of marketing-speak made up word just makes my skin crawl. I don't
see how it's any more expressive than "signing up new users". At least he
calls them "users" and not "consumers"...

It didn't really stop me from reading the article, I kept going after I
finished cringing.

~~~
bmelton
I think that, in an article directly related to marketing, marketing-speak is
appropriate.

~~~
rhubarbquid
Fair enough.

