

Ask YC: Do 30 day trials actually help get customers? - scribblewiki

Has anyone here seen any benifitof offering customers 30 day free trials for a web based product.
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gscott
Salesforce.com offers a 30 day free trial and it works for them. If you are
offering a Wiki I believe it would be a good idea but in doing so you should
be sure to engage the customer with daily emails over the 30 day trial.

When I tried offering my first web application in 2001-2002 with a 30 day free
trial I has 1,200 trial sign up and 3 conversions. I didn't follow up with
those who signed up, I didn't collect phone numbers to make any phone calls, I
failed in that partly because I just didn't engage the consumer. I got them in
the door but left them hanging to figure things out themselves and sell
themselves.

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iron_ball
Might also be worth ensuring that the users have support or at least howtos to
set and use your app, ensuring that they're actually using it during the trial
(maybe auto-extend their trial if they never got around to using it -- you
don't want to lose them instantly if they finally go to the app and the trial
is over).

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gscott
I like that auto-extend idea. "We noticed you didn't get a chance to use your
trial period, we wanted to give you a second chance trial and help you get
started".

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nfriedly
I know that my previous company did get more customers when they were
advertising a free 30 day trial than whey they were not. I am certain that
enough of the customers stuck around after 30 days to make it worthwhile.

The business was very much customer-service oriented. Every new customer got a
phone call to ensure that they were properly set up, give them a 5 minute or
so introduction to the product, and personally invite the customer to a weekly
live training webinar.

They catered to less computer-savy people mostly, but even the technical folks
seemed to appreciate the personal touch.

