How to Kill a Sale
on 08.16.05, 06:18am in art of software • comments (6)
After reading about it over and over again, I finally got around to installing TopDesk this morning. Initial reaction: Wow. This is Expose’ for Windows. It rocks - it’s very well implemented, very smooth and I can easily see it becoming part of my daily tool set.
Unfortunately, I had to uninstall it after 3 minutes of usage. Why?
The freaking non-stop balloonhelp nagware. It literally popped up 10 times in the first 20 seconds, and pops every time I do something with it. While I certainly understand a small ISV’s need to remind people to register, it doesn’t have be in your face over and over and over and over and over again. It’s what I said in "Bad Software Experiences": While TopDesk is sooo close to being a killer user experience, it becomes a bigger let down than prom night because of the incessant nagging.
Which in the end, is too bad. I would have registered it without question if it only reminded me once a day (or even better, once a week) while I tried it out.
James Stewart (August 16, 2005 @ 9:06 am)
Hi, I’m from Otaku Software.
We thought long and hard about how we’d implement the trial, and in the end settled for balloon help instead of a time-limited or usage-limited trial. I don’t believe either of those options are a good way to let users try out software, since they force the user into making a decision about buying/deleting the software as soon as whatever hard limit that’s in place runs out. I’d rather the user keep the program around on their system to try out at their leisure.
For example, say you’ve got a time consuming activity coming up (crunch-time at work, holiday), but you’ve got a spare five minutes right now, so you decide to install TopDesk. Which situation would you prefer?
a. You’ve now got 30 days to try out the software, but can’t spend much time evaluating it.
b. You can now activate the expose mode 100 times. Since you’ve only got 5 minutes to spare every now and again, you’ll be using a lot of those activations getting back up to speed with what the app can do and how to user/configure it.
c. You’ve now got the software on your system to use whenever you want, and you can have a quick look at it while you’ve got spare time, and then have a more in-depth look at it when you’ve got more time free. The software has nag balloon help that’s annoying, but doesn’t grab focus or otherwise interfere with your usage of the system. Apart from that you can do everything the full version does.
With options (a) and (b), at the end of the trial period, you’re not really convinced you want to buy TopDesk, and since you can’t try it out anymore, you delete it from your system. With option (c), you can now spend some quality time evaluating the software. I don’t know about you, but I’m a (c) person :).
As an ISV, at the end of the day it all boils down to offering enough of an incentive to the user to buy the full version. If we had the balloon help pop up once a day, then that’d be very easy to live with for a lot of users, and they wouldn’t bother registering. If we had it popup once a week, most if not all people wouldn’t bother. Heck, if it popped up once a week, even *I* wouldn’t bother registering :). For me, the point of a trial version is to give users enough of a taste of the real thing that they want to go out and buy it. If they’ve already got the real thing or something very close to the real thing, there’s no reason for them to spend their hard-earned cash.
You say that TopDesk “is sooo close to a killer user experience”, and that the incessant nagging is the cause of the let down. From this, I think it’s safe to say that the trial’s been able to demonstrate to you how cool the software is, and that it’s very close to a killer user experience but *just* misses the mark because of the nagging. At this point, you’ve seen what’s on offer, you want it but don’t have it, and you know that you can get it for less than the price of a movie ticket. For the trial, that’s mission accomplished :).
Otaku Software Weblog (August 16, 2005 @ 9:36 am)
Trials and Tribulations
Furry Goat says he hates the TopDesk trial so much that he doesn’t want to register. The question’s been asked of users before as to whether we should switch to a traditional time or usage limited trial keep it as is. Last time this was asked we didn’t…
James Stewart (August 16, 2005 @ 10:09 am)
Just a quick follow up remark: Since trying out the trial left you with a bad taste in your mouth, I’d like to make it up to you by offering you the full version for free. If you’re interested, post your details to any of the forms on our website and I’ll arrange a download for you.
The Furrygoat Experience (August 16, 2005 @ 12:45 pm)
How to Win A Sale
A few hours ago, I was lamenting over TopDesk. While I loved the app, the nagware approach to remind users to register drove me nuts enough to uninstall it. Fast forward a few hours: I’m going to buy a copy
Addicted to Digital Media (August 17, 2005 @ 8:45 pm)
TopDesk - Productivity done right, marketing done wrong er… right?
Addicted to Digital Media (August 17, 2005 @ 8:46 pm)
TopDesk - Productivity done right, marketing done wrong er… right?