Who Doesn’t Like Free?

I may be dating myself a bit here, but I remember way back when in 1990 when GM launched the Saturn. They billed themselves as “A different kind of car. A different kind of car company.”

It’s the same conversation we had during a meeting last week when we were trying to figure out the Beta promotion for today’s release — a 7-Day Free Trial Membership. True, a standard offer, but I wanted to execute it differently. I knew how other companies handled these “Free” offers and the strings that were usually attached, but I didn’t want to be like “those other companies” or follow the “industry standard.” I mean, we’re so not standard!

I kept hearing arguments for why we had to get a credit card number first in order to give You 7-days free, and why we had to bill You immediately for a Monthly Pass and then give you five weeks; “everybody else does it,” or “this way we can roll them right into membership.” To me, it all just felt so used car salesman or foreign diplomat email scam. Besides, that’s not a Free Trial. That’s five weeks for the price of four.

The truth, as it was pointed out to me, is that we need a card number to prevent fraud. Not that any of You would do this, but without a card number, there is no way of preventing a user from continuing to register under different names to string together a on-going free membership. So I challenged the team to come up with some other options to prevent this, and without getting all Big Brother or too techie on You, there was no way around it.

OK, I get that now, and hopefully You do too.

At the very least, I wanted to make the process less, ummm, slimy and be upfront with You, a sort of full disclosure.

So we decided two things. One, we won’t bill your credit card until the 7-day trial is completed, and not a moment before. So You really are getting a week free.

Two, we’ll send you an email before, not after, we bill your card to let You know your 7 days are just about up. This way, you have the chance to cancel before any charges hit your account (of course, we know You won’t want to, but just in case).

Sure, we could make more money the other way, but that’s just bad Karma. And who needs that?

The one thing I can always offer You is honesty and my word. So while we still need a card number, I at least feel like we’re being on the up and up with You.

Now, as if that weren’t enough, we have a new killer video player launching in this release as well. It has easy to use and clearly labeled buttons, a real scroll bar to fast-forward or go back, and even better video quality. In fact, if you have a monthly pass, you get to choose lower or higher quality viewing by selecting L or H button to manage your bandwidth while streaming.

So as we keep striving to Be Us and deliver the best possible user experience, remember, Be You – Everyday!

Bob