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I send the reminder on day 7 of 14. I've tried other schedules, but settled on 7 days as the last automatic mail. By that point in time, everyone's fallen into

I send the reminder on day 7 of 14. I've tried other schedules, but settled on 7 days as the last automatic mail. By that point in time, everyone's fallen into one of three groups: 1) Those that signed up, set up their accounts and are already getting value out of the service. They don't need the reminder, sending it is just good-will with this group. 2) Those that signed up, decided it wasn't right for them for whatever reason within the first 10 minutes, but didn't take the time to cancel. When they get the reminder and remember they're going to be charged, they cancel at this point. You've avoided the "I forgot to cancel and can't believe you charged me" problems here. 3) Those that signed up, then decided to put off actually using the account they created until later, but do intend to use it. You've reminded them to get to it sooner than later, and they still have a week to try out the service before paying for it. And always refund customers who cancel right after the first bill. Whether you have the legal right to bill them or not is irrelevant, it's not worth the ill will. Happy ex-customers can become happy customers again in the future.

lucaspiller 13y ago
> And always refund customers who cancel right after the first bill This. I signed up for an Amazon Prime trial, and forgot to cancel it (even though I'd setup a calendar reminder I missed). I remembered a week later, and was a bit unhappy that I'd been charged. I logged in to cancel it so I wouldn't be billed again the next year, and Amazon said as I hadn't used the service since they billed me they would provide a full refund.
- sophacles 13y ago
  And as a result of this - I am reading another "good guy Amazon" story on the net. This reinforces my concept that Amazon is reasonable to deal with, and I'll be more likely to buy from them, other things being equal. Similarly this is why I have a preference for Square and Stripe over other similar services, my local $preferred_brand car dealership (over other local ones) and so on with other reasonable to deal with companies. At the end of the day, I'm willing to pay even a bit more if the hassle is lower, or expected to be lower should I need something 'weird' (defined as: not just purchase and walk away forever). Generating a little bit of good feeling towards your business is totally worth some overhead cost.
  - corobo 13y ago
    To throw another into the pot (Good guy stories beget good guy stories) I ordered something or other from Amazon which didn't arrive a few days later than their estimate, they sent me a new one for free. Couple of days later both arrive, I offered to send one back they told me not to worry about it :)
  - cpr 13y ago
    I ordered a fairly expensive lawnmower from Amazon, and it arrived slightly damaged (really horrible packaging with no real protection--I think it wasn't Amazon's packaging). I called Amazon, and they sent another overnight(!) and told me to just keep the first. (I fixed it up at low cost and use it at our farm.) They clearly have factored in goodwill as an offsetting benefit to any costs of selling entirely remotely. (BTW, the best customer service I have ever experienced was from Anthro, the computer furniture company. I had used one of their desks (MDF construction) for 5 years and it was sagging in the middle. I called to complain and they apologized, explaining they had re-engineered that design with an additional support leg in the middle. They then, at no cost and no promting from me, overnighted me a replacement new-style desk ($900 desk, $300 shipping), five years into the life of the original desk. Astounding.)
  - jnardiello 13y ago
    Regarding Amazon, i've been working with them closely on the marketplace for about 2yrs and i can say they are evil geniuses. Their policy is: - They know were flaws are (packaging, products, marketplace partnerships, deliveries, etc..) but still make nothing to fix them. They rather estimate that a certain amount of customers will complain and will just refund them with no questions, so everyone is happy. - During this process, flaws expenses and drawbacks are thrown on third party partners so that financially they keep up. - The result is that they look like the "wow" guys, partners take full responsibility. - The more they become a monopoly, the more they can play this game. Quite horrible, honestly.
    - abjorn 13y ago
      Part of me believes that's awful, and part of me is just impressed at how smart that is.
jlees 13y ago
You could segment users based off activity, for example sending: 1) a goodwill email, an up-sell to a longer-term plan or extra features, etc; 2) automatically cancel these folks, and send an email to that effect: "We notice you're not using X, so we won't be charging you at the end of your trial." They will just cause a cancellation anyway, though you will lose some of the 'free money' from lazy or unaware users. 3) Don't bill, but you could automatically extend the trial since they haven't used it, and you'll get more value from people converting to group 1) than 2). Perhaps the free trial starts when they've actually done some impactful action other than create the account. There's way more segmenting you could do based on the types of users you see, which ones are most enjoying the service, and so on. Just seems odd these days to say "I'll email everyone" on a fixed rule.
- notahacker 13y ago
  Defaulting to (3) is a very good idea, especially if your trial is short and your product isn't friction free to start using or typically used on a daily basis. It's amazing how often people genuinely need unused trials extending (and buy afterwards) even when it's B2B SaaS and they've already discussed why they probably need it with a salesperson.

lucaspiller 13y ago

> And always refund customers who cancel right after the first bill This. I signed up for an Amazon Prime trial, and forgot to cancel it (even though I'd setup a calendar reminder I missed). I remembered a week later, and was a bit unhappy that I'd been charged. I logged in to cancel it so I wouldn't be billed again the next year, and Amazon said as I hadn't used the service since they billed me they would provide a full refund.

sophacles 13y ago
And as a result of this - I am reading another "good guy Amazon" story on the net. This reinforces my concept that Amazon is reasonable to deal with, and I'll be more likely to buy from them, other things being equal. Similarly this is why I have a preference for Square and Stripe over other similar services, my local $preferred_brand car dealership (over other local ones) and so on with other reasonable to deal with companies. At the end of the day, I'm willing to pay even a bit more if the hassle is lower, or expected to be lower should I need something 'weird' (defined as: not just purchase and walk away forever). Generating a little bit of good feeling towards your business is totally worth some overhead cost.
- corobo 13y ago
  To throw another into the pot (Good guy stories beget good guy stories) I ordered something or other from Amazon which didn't arrive a few days later than their estimate, they sent me a new one for free. Couple of days later both arrive, I offered to send one back they told me not to worry about it :)
- cpr 13y ago
  I ordered a fairly expensive lawnmower from Amazon, and it arrived slightly damaged (really horrible packaging with no real protection--I think it wasn't Amazon's packaging). I called Amazon, and they sent another overnight(!) and told me to just keep the first. (I fixed it up at low cost and use it at our farm.) They clearly have factored in goodwill as an offsetting benefit to any costs of selling entirely remotely. (BTW, the best customer service I have ever experienced was from Anthro, the computer furniture company. I had used one of their desks (MDF construction) for 5 years and it was sagging in the middle. I called to complain and they apologized, explaining they had re-engineered that design with an additional support leg in the middle. They then, at no cost and no promting from me, overnighted me a replacement new-style desk ($900 desk, $300 shipping), five years into the life of the original desk. Astounding.)
- jnardiello 13y ago
  Regarding Amazon, i've been working with them closely on the marketplace for about 2yrs and i can say they are evil geniuses. Their policy is: - They know were flaws are (packaging, products, marketplace partnerships, deliveries, etc..) but still make nothing to fix them. They rather estimate that a certain amount of customers will complain and will just refund them with no questions, so everyone is happy. - During this process, flaws expenses and drawbacks are thrown on third party partners so that financially they keep up. - The result is that they look like the "wow" guys, partners take full responsibility. - The more they become a monopoly, the more they can play this game. Quite horrible, honestly.
  - abjorn 13y ago
    Part of me believes that's awful, and part of me is just impressed at how smart that is.

jlees 13y ago

You could segment users based off activity, for example sending: 1) a goodwill email, an up-sell to a longer-term plan or extra features, etc; 2) automatically cancel these folks, and send an email to that effect: "We notice you're not using X, so we won't be charging you at the end of your trial." They will just cause a cancellation anyway, though you will lose some of the 'free money' from lazy or unaware users. 3) Don't bill, but you could automatically extend the trial since they haven't used it, and you'll get more value from people converting to group 1) than 2). Perhaps the free trial starts when they've actually done some impactful action other than create the account. There's way more segmenting you could do based on the types of users you see, which ones are most enjoying the service, and so on. Just seems odd these days to say "I'll email everyone" on a fixed rule.

notahacker 13y ago
Defaulting to (3) is a very good idea, especially if your trial is short and your product isn't friction free to start using or typically used on a daily basis. It's amazing how often people genuinely need unused trials extending (and buy afterwards) even when it's B2B SaaS and they've already discussed why they probably need it with a salesperson.