Giving customers free access to software for a trial period?
Discussion
Our foreign head office keeps wanting us to push a new, complicated bit of software onto our customers.
Our main area of business is manufacturing specialist machinery, the software is a compliment to this but:
1) Our biggest customers already have their own custom software solutions
2) That leaves us with smaller customers with smaller budgets
3) There's three of four modules, each one around £10k
4) After at least two years of development, in the UK we still haven't seen a properly functional program, we have asked but don't even have access to a demo we can show customers. Instead we've just been given three pages of badly written PowerPoint marketing.
We are busy and successful with our current manufacturing work, we are open minded to new ideas but this software idea is half baked.
Anyway I need to be constructive with head office, I've said as a minimum they need to give potential customers 30 day free access to the software to try out. A "cut down" version with limited features I don't think makes sense as it works on very big databases, customers kind of need to see the whole thing.
Any ideas please? Is a thirty day free access period, tied to specific companies (ie you can't make multiple logins) feasible? Not sure how this stuff works these days. In the old days you used to have a dongle, but I think a fair chunk is cloud based anyway so I guess that's not necessary?
Our main area of business is manufacturing specialist machinery, the software is a compliment to this but:
1) Our biggest customers already have their own custom software solutions
2) That leaves us with smaller customers with smaller budgets
3) There's three of four modules, each one around £10k
4) After at least two years of development, in the UK we still haven't seen a properly functional program, we have asked but don't even have access to a demo we can show customers. Instead we've just been given three pages of badly written PowerPoint marketing.
We are busy and successful with our current manufacturing work, we are open minded to new ideas but this software idea is half baked.
Anyway I need to be constructive with head office, I've said as a minimum they need to give potential customers 30 day free access to the software to try out. A "cut down" version with limited features I don't think makes sense as it works on very big databases, customers kind of need to see the whole thing.
Any ideas please? Is a thirty day free access period, tied to specific companies (ie you can't make multiple logins) feasible? Not sure how this stuff works these days. In the old days you used to have a dongle, but I think a fair chunk is cloud based anyway so I guess that's not necessary?
Yes, why not. Just restrict it to a particular IP (or range) if relevant or make it so that only so many people can log in using a username at the same time, and only hand out a certain number of usernames. Or just restrict it to 30 days/2 weeks/whatever and don't worry about restrictions because the account will be frozen after the test period.
One of the problems that I've experienced in the past is that if the software is not intuitive to install/ configure to the customers business then it is easy to just give up and class it as expensive complicated crap. I've had this from both sides of the table (vendor and customer).
You don't want to give customers the impression that you think a product is ready-to-go and will be off interest to them if it is actually broken and wouldn't be of interest to them, even if it worked. Either of those would send an appalling message about your firm's competence and understanding of their customers. I'm guessing your sales and relationship management people will think that's obvious, and they tend to have a direct way of communicating with product managers who've built a turd.
Peterpetrole said:
4) After at least two years of development, in the UK we still haven't seen a properly functional program
I know I'm probably stating the bleeding obvious to you, but why on earth would you entertain trying to sell something to customers that you know yourself doesn't work properly? You don't get a second chance to make a first impression, you need to have confidence in the software first before you try and punt it out.48k said:
Peterpetrole said:
4) After at least two years of development, in the UK we still haven't seen a properly functional program
I know I'm probably stating the bleeding obvious to you, but why on earth would you entertain trying to sell something to customers that you know yourself doesn't work properly? You don't get a second chance to make a first impression, you need to have confidence in the software first before you try and punt it out.Peterpetrole said:
48k said:
Peterpetrole said:
4) After at least two years of development, in the UK we still haven't seen a properly functional program
I know I'm probably stating the bleeding obvious to you, but why on earth would you entertain trying to sell something to customers that you know yourself doesn't work properly? You don't get a second chance to make a first impression, you need to have confidence in the software first before you try and punt it out.That said, when it is fully working trials can be a great sales experience depending on the industry / tech.
48k said:
I know I'm probably stating the bleeding obvious to you, but why on earth would you entertain trying to sell something to customers that you know yourself doesn't work properly? You don't get a second chance to make a first impression, you need to have confidence in the software first before you try and punt it out.
I’m not sure that argument is wholly persuasive. Microsoft has made billions despite beta-testing its s
tty software on paying punters. Look at it from a couple of different perspectives:
Customers often value, and persevere with, a product based on their economic commitment. Giving it free could well lead to a lack of customer commitment, especially if it has some complexity (abandonment can be cheaper than perseverance).
What do those who do persevere get? They’ll want to know up front what the cost is, so you still have the sales cycle to go through before the trial.
What else do they need? All, if not more, support than they’d need/expect if they’d paid for the product. Even though the product is free, it’s essential to knock it out of the park when it comes to service if you want to convert those free trial users to paying customers.
What happens if they don’t get what they need? If they try it and abandon it, it’s not only bad for figures/investment you’ve made in them, but also takes potential customers out of the market (potentially for your core product too if their experience with the new one is dire). If HQ/product manager doesn’t have a support model in place, it’s not ready to go to market… asking them for details of this might help you out.
Here’s the big one: if your product is new, perhaps really a beta, you are going to get a lot of feedback from any trial customers. Ignore it at your peril (see above), but incorporate that customer feedback at your peril too! It is incredibly easy for a company with limited tech product management experience (which it sounds, from the PowerPoint comments, that yours might be) to take feedback from early adopters as being indicative of wider market needs and then sleepwalk into a product that doesn’t really fit the wider market. Sure, those couple of early adopters may think it’s great, but poor product management in the early days can store up serious trouble for the future.
Lastly, if you wanted to see if it’s really likely to fly, find a tame prospect and invite the Product Manager over to help pitch/demo it (your team isn’t in software sales and you want to give it the best chance/learn from the PM)… if it is as bad as you suspect, you can watch it crash and burn from a ringside seat, all whilst being helpful!
If it turns out to be great, you get to feedback how amazing it was.
Customers often value, and persevere with, a product based on their economic commitment. Giving it free could well lead to a lack of customer commitment, especially if it has some complexity (abandonment can be cheaper than perseverance).
What do those who do persevere get? They’ll want to know up front what the cost is, so you still have the sales cycle to go through before the trial.
What else do they need? All, if not more, support than they’d need/expect if they’d paid for the product. Even though the product is free, it’s essential to knock it out of the park when it comes to service if you want to convert those free trial users to paying customers.
What happens if they don’t get what they need? If they try it and abandon it, it’s not only bad for figures/investment you’ve made in them, but also takes potential customers out of the market (potentially for your core product too if their experience with the new one is dire). If HQ/product manager doesn’t have a support model in place, it’s not ready to go to market… asking them for details of this might help you out.
Here’s the big one: if your product is new, perhaps really a beta, you are going to get a lot of feedback from any trial customers. Ignore it at your peril (see above), but incorporate that customer feedback at your peril too! It is incredibly easy for a company with limited tech product management experience (which it sounds, from the PowerPoint comments, that yours might be) to take feedback from early adopters as being indicative of wider market needs and then sleepwalk into a product that doesn’t really fit the wider market. Sure, those couple of early adopters may think it’s great, but poor product management in the early days can store up serious trouble for the future.
Lastly, if you wanted to see if it’s really likely to fly, find a tame prospect and invite the Product Manager over to help pitch/demo it (your team isn’t in software sales and you want to give it the best chance/learn from the PM)… if it is as bad as you suspect, you can watch it crash and burn from a ringside seat, all whilst being helpful!
If it turns out to be great, you get to feedback how amazing it was. You can only polish a turd so shiny.
It may be counter intuitive to the existing business.
Most likely its cheaper, easier and better to acquire a company who has a working solution in this area than build your own.
I get this is out of your sphere of influence - but as per my first line - it can do more damage that good to your existing business relationships if they bite and have buyers remorse.
It may be counter intuitive to the existing business.
Most likely its cheaper, easier and better to acquire a company who has a working solution in this area than build your own.
I get this is out of your sphere of influence - but as per my first line - it can do more damage that good to your existing business relationships if they bite and have buyers remorse.
If you have the bandwidth to support I would be asking head office if they would consider a beta program. Customer gets the product for free during the beta and then either free following or at a significant discount if they want to continue to use it. Customer has direct access to project and product team to log defects, suggest enhancements and assist the company in getting the software market ready. If head office and product are confident in the software this would be a no brainer and you get a reference site for future sales. You can throw other incentives in like reduced maintenance costs etc to offset the customers investment in the program. It can be a significant investment and they are not always successful, but it will prove if the product is market ready / actually works.
I dont think 30 days is enough. 3months will give your co extra relationship building time, valuable feedback (that head office can ignore but cant argue against), opportunity to show how bugs can be fixed and pushed out quickly, decent amount of data to prove the value of reports - plus the customer gets used to it/ it starts to become embedded.
Thing is, what is the problem that the sw is solving ? Efficiency & productivity data? And without a demo you cant show them anything!
Thing is, what is the problem that the sw is solving ? Efficiency & productivity data? And without a demo you cant show them anything!
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