How to extend a trial for a customer

Support can Answer

Extend a Trial

Steps:

1. Getting clear on their ask
2. Can you approve this trial extension?
3. Steps to take if owned by an SDR or AE
4. Steps to take if no one is assigned to the account
5. How to close the conversation.
6. How to say no.

1. Getting clear on their ask

Oftentimes customers will come into Support to ask for their trial to be reset. This can be for many reasons, from not having enough time to demo the product to needing a few more days to show it to another part of their team to get them onboard. If they have not specified the number of days they would like to extend their trial for, just ask. Sometimes they will ask for an additional 14 days and some will ask just for a few days. If they ask for 14 days then I go for that, but if they ask for something like 1-2 more days or a smaller amount, I typically will add 1 day to give them the time and it adds a little bit of delight (but not until I go through the steps below). We should generally not give them more than 28 days (two two week periods) total.

2. Can you approve this trial extension?

Now that you have bought yourself some time and set expectations with the customer there are some considerations that need to be made before extending the trial.

Things to check are:

1. Does this account have a SDR or AE? If the account is currently working with someone in Salesforce, then they need to be the one that approves or denies the extended trial and you are not able to approve on their behalf. See #3 for more detail on what to do from here.
1. See How to check for an Account Executive (AE) on an account. SDRs will show in the same place an AE would show, as outlined in this doc.
2. How many employees are at the company? A company needs to be above 50 employees in order to get handed off to an AE and above 76 employees to be handled by sales development. Follow the Sales Handoff part of this doc: Support to Sales Handoffs: trials, demos, plans and pricing, expansion opps
3. If no one is assigned to the account, check and see if they have requested a reset recently. You can check Django on their company page. There you will see “Trial length days”, and the normal amount is 14. If it shows more than this that means they are either on a special trial (SDR or AE owned), or they have been given an extension already.

If an account does not have anyone assigned to it yet in Salesforce and they have not already been granted an extension, then you can extend their trial. Proceed to #4. 😊If the customer is self-service and they have had a trial extension already, head down to #6 “How to say no.”

3. Steps to take if an SDR or AE is assigned to the account

Use the "Forward to Sales" quick text canned response, and cc the SDR or AE on the ticket. Tag with "Forward to Sales" and close ticket.

4. Steps to take if no one is assigned to the account and they have fewer than 50 employees

After you have confirmed that no one is assigned to the account, they have fewer than 50 employees, and they have not already had a trial extension, then you can extend their trial! 🎉To do this just follow these steps:

1. Bring up their company page by searching for their company ID#

2. Click on the company name to bring up the company page

3. In the “Trial length days” field change the “14” by adding the additional days to the number. For example, in the example above the customer wants to add 14 more days. You will update this field to show 28. Scroll down and click “Save.”
3. Note: We do not change the start date of the trial as this does affect our customer metrics. To keep the integrity of our data intact, only change the number of days by adding to it.
4. If it has been a while since their trial ended, you will need to calculate how many days it has been since it ended, add the number of days they have already had to that number, and add the number of additional days you are giving them to that number. The final number is what you need to have in the "Trial length days" field.

5. How to close the conversation.

Once you have confirmed you can reset the trial and actually updated the trial date, you can let the customer know that their trial has been extended.

An example is:

“Hey Jane, I have great news! I was able to get approval to extend your trial another 14 days. I went ahead and already added that time to your trial so you are all set. 😊 Was there anything else I could help you with today?”

6. How to say no.

Saying no can suck, but is a normal part of Customer Support. If the customer has been approved before for a trial, we are not able to approve again. There are, however, ways to word it so it lightens the blow:

“Hey Jane, thank you for your patience while I looked into this. Since we show that we have already extended your trial once, we are unable to extend again. However, we do offer a monthly payment option where you have 30 days to work within 15Five. You can do this with the Perform, Focus, or Total Platform subscriptions. Here is a list of what comes with each subscription and the pricing if you decide to go that route. Let me know if you have any other questions or if I can help in any way.“