When Dirk Hoerig, Chief Innovation Officer of commercetools, first introduced commercetools and his innovative headless platform at a 2013 conference, he boldly invited all 350 attendees to test drive the platform. His belief was that everyone needed to experience it — and it didn’t matter if they were potential competitors — as the goal was to show off the functionality and flexibility that the platform could offer. Today, our Free 60-day Trial continues the tradition, allowing prospective customers to experiment with commercetools Platform so they can experience the power of composable commerce firsthand. A few years ago, our solutions engineers discovered that having the support of a commercetools expert could increase the success of the free trial experience, and the Guided Trial Program was born.
What are guided trials?
The Guided Trial Program is an opportunity for a prospect to partner with commercetools to evaluate our technology. It provides a structured approach that converts the experience from just exploring commercetools to effectively evaluating the platform. Daniel Strassenburg, Senior Solutions Engineer at commercetools, compares the program to having a co-pilot in the passenger seat with a lot of experience. “Let’s say you want to take a car that you’re thinking about buying for a test drive. You know how to drive a car, but you also know each model is different. Each one has different features and extras that you might not be aware of and this expert can show you these things.”
Daniel said people often sign up for the free trial not knowing what they actually want to accomplish. As a result, they do something small like create a product or discount in the Merchant Center. However, “that's not an effective evaluation of a commerce solution.” With a guided trial, the idea is to increase trial user engagement by helping the prospect take a step back and think about what they need to evaluate and validate to feel comfortable going with commercetools, and then create a roadmap to accomplish that.
Every prospect's reason for signing up for the free trial is a little different. Matt Dunphy, Lead Solutions Engineer at commercetools, explained that some are interested in comparing the differences between a composable platform and a legacy platform. Others want to confirm they can use commercetools as their commerce engine while continuing to use other commerce software, such as SAP for their ERP. Still, others are looking to see if commercetools can handle a complex use case or if composable is something they can launch with their existing in-house resources.
The ultimate goal is to give the prospect confidence. Many of our competitors are good at selling — they’ll sell you the dream. Then you sign up for it only to find out that things are not exactly as you were sold. For me, the trial proves that our platform does what we say it can do. It's a trust-building exercise. It's not just talk. It’s literally not only demonstrating the technology but also demonstrating the company culture here and the partnership we offer.
LEAD SOLUTIONS ENGINEER, commercetools
The Guided Trial Program is designed as a six-phase journey. It includes support to identify the main goals of a trial, direct access to a commercetools expert (for example, through a dedicated Slack channel), regular check-in meetings, an evaluation of results and a scheduled discussion of next steps. It’s important to note that every free trial user is not a candidate for the program. The prospect must first qualify as a viable sales opportunity, and then agree to actively participate in the process.
We can get them to the point where they have a POC or something that helps assess whether commercetools is a good fit. This requires a bit of commitment from both sides — from the customer as well as from us. From our side, it's an offer to make the trial successful and efficient. For the customer, they have to be ready to invest some resources in the project and work with us. This gives them the opportunity to go hands-on, work on specific use cases while being supported by a commercetools expert.
SENIOR SOLUTIONS ENGINEER, commercetools
In the two or so years since launching the program, Matt estimated that the majority of companies that have participated in the program have become commercetools customers. Those who built an eCommerce POC during the 60 days have been able to transition the trial solution to a live environment, providing a big jumpstart on their migration project. He gave an example of a US chain of discount specialty stores that, while technically savvy, had issues with the free trial. The commercetools team connected with the tech team, offering to launch a guided trial to help avoid further missteps. “This exposed them to commercetools Frontend, which they had not been considering. Getting hands-on access build a storefront in commercetools Frontend, in addition to guidance on commercetools Composable Commerce for B2C (our backend product), gave them the confidence to move forward with our solution — and the ability to fully replatform six months after signing.”
Daniel added that not all program participants are prospects; some are already customers. For example, last year, a customer running on our backend solution was interested in commercetools Frontend, so we offered them a guided trial to try it out. “They put together a team of business users and developers. They came up with use cases and we went through the exercise together. This was a super successful example of the value of having a commercetools guide.”
Currently, the free trial gives users immediate access to commercetools Platform, but there is an option to request a trial of commercetools Frontend on the same registration form. commercetools' partners can also request a trial environment by contacting their Partner Manager.
While a handful of other technology vendors allow prospects to test drive their software, commercetools' free trial is unique in that it gives users 60 days of access, along with sample data, a how-to guide and extensive documentation. As a result, even without the additional support of a guide, many customers have cited it as a deciding factor in their choice to migrate to commercetools. However, we’ve also continually seen prospects sign up and then never start the trial because they’re unclear about what to build.
A free trial to commercetools is like giving someone the keys to a hardware store and telling them to build something. They might walk over to the screws without a screwdriver and think, ‘This doesn't make sense. Where do I even start?’ With a guided trial, we come to you and say, ‘Let's do a little discovery first. Let’s understand your goals. Aha! It sounds like you want a cool desk. Okay, let's talk about how to use our tools and the right materials to build that desk.
LEAD SOLUTIONS ENGINEER, commercetools
To learn more about what’s included in our free trial to explore how our composable commerce platform can benefit your business, read our blog, Considering an eCommerce platform migration? Check out the top 5 FAQs for our 60-day trial
Ankita is a product marketing professional at commercetools and is passionate about developing value-based product messaging to communicate the vision and value of their products to the market. She has lived and worked in five different countries and navigated roles in the consulting and financial services industry before transiting into eCommerce post MBA.