Who doesn’t love a free trial? It’s one of the oldest selling tricks in the book, and a lot of businesses use it as incentive to get new customers to come on board. Once they are using the service, those same businesses rely on the clients ‘laziness’ to keep them – assuming they won’t want the hassle of switching once they are comfortably settled in. Call answering is, unfortunately, no different. We have seen it over and over again with our competitors, and we don’t want you to go through the same thing. So today, we wanted to share a few words of warning about free trials, and what to keep an eye out for.
Your Service May Suffer Afterwards
As with many things, businesses offering a free trial will often ensure you get the best possible treatment and service during your free trial. This not only makes a good impression on you as a customer, but ensures that you will stay with them after the trial ends. This is all well and good, but you may not see the downsides until the free trial is over. Often once the trail is finished, new customers will be shifted on to the ‘main service team’ rather than the ‘trial team’. This team may not be able to live up to the same standards as the previous team set, and as such you will likely see a dip in your service levels – which your business may or may not be able to handle.
A Difficult Cancellation Process
Often it is much more difficult to cancel a free trial than it is to start one. For example, you may be able to sign up online in as little as 5 minutes, but you may have to spend half an hour on the phone to cancel. Remember that companies don’t want you to cancel their service, so they have no motivation to make the cancellation process easy or convenient for you. And even though the company may have to tell you what the cancellation process is (and that you are free to cancel in the first place), then they will hide it in the small print, knowing you are unlikely to read it. This can be extremely frustrating, and lead to you wasting a lot of your very valuable time.
You’re Releasing Your Personal And Business Information
With data being the most valuable asset in the world now, it’s unsurprising that companies offering a free trial want their fair share of yours. In order to register for most free trial offers, you will need to give out some personal details, as well as some information about your business. While sharing details like your email address might seem harmless, it can open you up to a world of new hassles – including your emails being bombarded with junk mail you don’t want. You also run the risk of the company selling on their customer list to other companies, which means the number of spam emails you get will increase exponentially. If you’re also giving business data in that sign-up process, then you could be at risk of it falling into the wrong hands, so you need to make sure the company is reputable and secure.
A Free Trial You Can Rely On
Of course, there are plenty of services you may want to try before you buy (or commit to long service contracts), and we know that call answering is one of them.
That’s why at Verbatim we don’t offer a free trial. Instead, we offer a 6-week money back guarantee on all of our services. This allows you to try out the service you’re interested in with the team you will be working with and get the real, everyday experience. To get you set up we spend time building your account and training our staff on your preferred voice and process, making sure they know exactly what you need and expect from us. This involves discussions with you, building scenarios, relaying conversations to receptionists and ensuring your receptionists are confident in where to find the information they need, and how you intend to use us. Because our services are so bespoke, each of our clients use us in a slightly different way, so we need to make sure your receptionists know exactly what they need to do. This is why it can take us up to 3 working days to get you set up – rather than an ‘instant-start’ free trial! And if you’re not happy at the end of the 6 weeks? You get your money back with no questions asked and no difficult cancellation policies. If you’re happy, your service will continue exactly as it has been. Now doesn’t that sound better than a free trial?
If you would like to know more, just get in touch with the team today. We are always happy to explain more about our trial, and our services, so you can be fully informed.
