4 reasons why you don’t get a new client Today

Each day – new companies want to make the world a better place and try to sell you fantastic service, API, whatever. I’m constantly searching for new exciting, and valuable services which could make “my” (my clients) live easier. Everyone has a flashy website, “Try now”, “Try now for free”, “Signup for free” – fill the form, no credit card required… entry level – no trouble at all. Let’s do it.

1. The form

Sometimes it’s super simple – Name, Email -> details will be sent via email. Sometimes it’s more sophisticated – you have to drop the password, so they don’t even verify if the confirmation email lands in Junk email. But with a more demanding marketing department, they put more stuff into the signup form. Like, “why do you want to use our awesome service ?” Seriously? You gave me 1000 reasons on a landing page to use your service. Our “where did you find out about our website?” erm… you don’t know how analytics works? Finally, you went thru 50 form fields. Click “sign up” and wait…

2. The activation

You got initial email – here are the login details to our… or not ?

Before sending you trial developer token, we would like to know how are you going to use the API. Please give us more information on  […] so we will be able to give you the best advise on how our APIs can help you.

Yep… either they don’t believe in power of  marketing materials, or  don’t trust my intelligence. Yes – I have read your awesome website, I know what are you trying to sell. That’s why I filled form with 50 fields, and I’m interested to try this out. Give me a chance to judge if it’s worth something.

3. The call

We need to talk. Always. I need to give you a call, because it’s super important to talk over the phone. Emails is not enough. They can’t provide information via email, because talk is gold. It’s super easy to talk with them. Just schedule a call, figure out which timezone each party is and wait. Then somebody will call you. Do the small talk, tell the story again. Because email is not enough, because thousands of dollars spent on copywriters,to produce marketing materials on their website are not sufficient – they have to schedule a call.

4. The process

Ok. Somehow you went thru registration form, activation process and got access to something. You even spend some time talking with “them” by the phone. You worked out API, you know that it works and then…

How are you? Unfortunatelly I still did not get any response from you. You account at XXX has a balance, but it’s still not active.

Could you tell me what are your plan on using XXX ? Can I help you with anything?

Well. My only question is “why is this account not active yet” ? If you can see my activity, even my money – WTF I can’t use this service yet ?

Well… all of them are true stories. They are not about one business, but 3 different experiences which I had recently. Do you have anything to add to this stories ?