This week I had a conversation with a provider of Sales Engagement Solutions. It doesn’t matter which one it was, only that they seemed like the kind of company that should offer a free trial of their software. The point of a free trial is to answer questions that can only be resolved by first-hand experience. When that trial happens before a demo or discovery call, the rep should welcome it because the prospect will likely ask better questions.
At the end of this discovery call, we talked briefly about pricing and availability only to find out that there wasn’t a free trial or paid pilot option. The only way to start implementation on this software was to sign a contract and begin as a customer. (So much for getting a sample to try it out.)
This stopped the sale cold in its tracks.
We had some questions about how to use the software in our environment, and were pretty sure we could prove them in a standard 14-28 day trial period. But that free trial was not offered.
If we had agreed to a contract, we probably could have negotiated a delayed start or an opt-out provision making it possible to try things out. But these options were not customer-friendly.
It’s possible to learn whether the grass is greener
All of a sudden, it became attractive to try one of their SaaS competitors who do offer a free trial. We wanted to know if we could stand up a sales sequencer with our preferred rules (mostly manual implementation, and task management) and the key items involved integration details that we couldn’t solve through discovery.
When you have specific requirements like:
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API access
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updating custom objects in Salesforce
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webhook triggers on specific rep actions
These are requirements that need a bit of testing to validate. As a GTM leader, you need to make it possible for prospects to feel like they are using the software and confident that it solves their use case, not just your preferred way of adding revenue.
The SaaS world has changed
Look around. If your competitors offer a free trial, you need to offer one too.
If you don’t offer a free trial, you are selling using an Enterprise Software selling motion. This includes contracts, a variable discount rate card, and very probably frustrating prospects who end up with buyer’s remorse when the software they committed themselves to doesn’t solve their use case.
You can offer:
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A segmented free trial – letting the prospect use a product in a particular tier, while time-limiting the trial.
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A reverse free trial, giving access to every feature until the end of the trial, with very few gates on customer behavior
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A demo experience where you get to play with a version or sample of the software but cannot customize it for your organization
Most of these options would have helped me when I realized I wanted to try out a new sales engagement solution, but the tactic of “you must sign a contract” didn’t move the deal forward.
Companies that let the prospect interact with the product will learn much more quickly whether their product is confusing. They will learn whether the customer trusts their product after using it for a while. And they will avoid the looming churn monster that happens when customers under contract quietly quit instead of telling them what’s wrong with their software.
What’s the takeaway? Software is a race to get useful product into the customer’s hands to validate they are getting what they wanted. In the SaaS world, the free trial is one of the best ways to make this happen for any customer. If your competitors are using this, you need to do the same. Putting up walls places your sales process in a different category. It may make your customers and revenue stickier but ultimately it’s not customer friendly.
