5 Ways to Optimize ‘Trial to Paid’ Conversion Rate with a Customer Success Tool!

Sruti Satish

Assume you're in the business of selling peaches. You're well aware that you have the best peaches on the market. And you want to demonstrate it to others. So before they decide whether or not to buy, you give them a complimentary bite of the fruit. Some people buy, some don’t. You figure out a way to persuade more customers to buy peaches after tasting one. They know you have the best peaches. They may need a little encouragement to complete the transaction. 

Apply this analogy to your SaaS business. The goal of a free trial for SaaS companies is to gain a customer. In this blog, you'll discover how to use some basic, reliable strategies to increase your free trial conversion rate. You'll learn how to make your free trials more appealing and the incentive for conversions more appealing.

Why is it critical to track free trials to paid conversion rates?

Selling technology with a free trial is akin to offering a free piece of fruit. It allows you to demonstrate to others that you have the best product on the market. It does, however, come with some danger. You've invested resources (and time) that you can't get back if someone doesn't finish a purchase.

As a result, optimizing your free trial conversion rates is in your best interests. You'll make more money if you convert more free trial consumers into paying clients. That's all there is to it.

Simply put, this:

• Increases Conversions
• Enhances Customer Engagement
• Improves recurring revenue (ARR/MRR)
• Builds Trust

Free trial customers are a wonderful target for your marketing because they've already dedicated to your product enough to sign up, possibly provide you with their credit card details, and understand the app. 

How does a Customer Success tool help optimize trial to paid conversion rate?

A dedicated Customer Success platform improves the firm's overall customer experience and also increases scalability. The following is the impact that a customer success platform can have on your business. 

• Automate Manual, Repetitive Tasks - Automation of repetitive tasks increases scalability. 
• Increase the number of trial users who convert – The team has been able to track how trial consumers interact with their product thanks to the option to uncover rich usage data. This has enabled them to improve their trial subscription program.
• Improve managing accounts proactively - The team was able to predict whether a client would churn or renew after using real-time health measurements.
• Optimize Customer Success Efforts  – Customer data that can be used is never more than just a few clicks away. This information is provided in an easy-to-understand style, with a user-friendly interface and reporting capabilities. 
• Determine which accounts are in need of attention – The team didn't have the means to award health scores or anticipate whether or not a customer would churn.
• Deliver the appropriate touchpoints at the right times – It was essential to automate the customer journey as well as other critical communications.
• Recognize their most key prospects – trial users – and keep track of how they're using the product.

5 Ways to Optimize ‘trial to paid’ conversion rate in SaaS. 

Everyone loves a free sample, whether they're shopping at Costco or signing up for the latest streaming music subscription. It's no surprise that a tactic formerly confined for food courts has found its way into other industries, including SaaS. Of course, the true test of success is how many free trials are converted into paid subscriptions.

Let’s check how to optimize the Trial to Paid Conversion rate in SaaS firms.

Provide a short free trial period.

What should the length of a free trial be? Many apps include a 30-day free trial, and you'd be inclined to take advantage of it. Isn't it ideal to give your potential customer extra time to adore your product? No. 

Why? Because people rarely try new things for a month. They'll most likely make their choice within a few days after beginning the free trial. Hence it makes for most of the B2B SaaS firms to provide only a 14-day trial.

Make it simple for non-paying customers to use your product.

Initial product adoption has a significant impact on long-term Customer Success for SaaS organizations. When converting a trial user into a paying account, the same principle applies: product value must be presented as rapidly as possible.

Opportunities for product ambiguity must be avoided in order to convert a free user into a paying customer. Because time is of the essence, a user's time to value must be realized fast. Given the prevalence of free or low-cost trial subscriptions, this is easier said than done. After all, few businesses can afford to provide Customer Success or Support personnel to non-paying clients.

Trial consumers can get the touchpoints and assistance that are usually reserved for top-tier clients thanks to automation and the right product resources. Regardless of your strategy, make sure that trial customers have easy access to additional resources.

Optimize your Pricing Plan

This isn't related to your free trial business plan, but it's important mentioning because it has a significant impact.

How big is it? After adjusting their pricing plan, Groove HQ saw a 358 percent increase in free trial signups and a 25% increase in revenue. Groove HQ once had three subscription levels, one of which was a restricted free option. The other two choices provided consumers with varying levels of access. Groove HQ's conversions and income skyrocketed once they switched to a $15/user/month plan.

As simple as that! You'll experience benefits if you can streamline your price and remove a choice barrier between prospective consumers and purchase.

Nurture your Free trial subscribers

A hundred percent rise in trial subscribers appears impressive on paper. But what matters the most is whether or not they convert to paying accounts. Customers should be nurtured and continually moved down the funnel, just like conventional sales and marketing tactics.

Despite the fact that these trial accounts have little value, think about how you may create consumer touchpoints that emphasize unique features or case studies that are relevant to them. Using in-app messaging to promote innovative features to trial users is a powerful approach to do it. Your team can utilize automated emails, sometimes known as 'Plays,' to automatically target these individuals with relevant material as they progress through their product journey. Proactively providing useful ideas and other information can assist trial users in reaching their "aha" moment.

Identify Common Conversion Activities

You've probably never heard of Lincoln Murphy's Common Conversation Activities (CCA) metric. "The things that all or most paying clients perform throughout their trial," Murphy says.

It was a means to examine past data and uncover patterns such as "everyone who became a client in the last 12 months did X, Y, and Z before converting." We might also utilize our understanding of the consumer to establish a hypothesis that "every client will likely need to perform X, Y, and Z before they convert" if historical data was not accessible—either for a pre-launch business or if that level of detail was simply not available.

What kind of information are we discussing? For example- 

• Setting up the account.
• Putting the test payment gateway setups to the test
• Creating an invoice after logging into the customer portal
• Setting up a hosted page

Final thoughts- Optimize Trial to Paid Conversion rate

A free trial is a value promise that you're allowing folks to test out for themselves. Don't forget the fundamentals. Companies that fail to keep this promise damage their brand and sales. However, if you can keep your word, you may make an excellent first impression that will entice your user to upgrade.

• Are you giving the right folks the correct service? 
• Is it possible to see your value propositions across the lifecycle?
• Is it simple to join up for a free trial or create a subscription account?

The first step toward improving your free trial conversions is to address these minor flaws.

You may then use the customer success tool to retain those customers once you've converted them!