The trial that ended quietly
A customer asked to evaluate a product. Your pre-sales engineer set up a thirty-day trial in the vendor portal, sent the activation email and helped with the first login. Then the engineer moved on to the next job. The account manager assumed pre-sales was following up. The trial expired. Two months later the customer bought a competing product, and when asked, said they got stuck on the second week and nobody checked in.
Why evaluations lose momentum
Trials sit awkwardly between pre-sales and sales. Pre-sales creates them, sales owns the deal, and the vendor holds the trial record. The expiry date and whether the customer has logged in are only visible in the vendor portal, if at all. Nobody is sure whose job it is to check progress halfway through.
Customers rarely say they are stuck. They just stop logging in.
| Point in the trial | What should happen | What usually happens |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Activation confirmed, success criteria agreed | Activation email sent |
| First week | Check they have logged in | Nothing |
| Midpoint | Review progress against criteria | Nothing |
| Before expiry | Decide: extend, buy or close | Trial lapses |
| After expiry | Record outcome and reason | Opportunity left open |
What cold trials cost
Every trial represents pre-sales time and a customer who was interested enough to try. Trials that lapse without follow-up are the most expensive kind of lost deal, because the work was already done. Opportunities left open with expired trials also inflate the pipeline and confuse forecasts.
Vendors notice as well. Many measure partners on how evaluations convert, and some fund or support trials only for partners who follow them through. A pattern of lapsed trials can quietly reduce the help you get on the next competitive deal.
And the information in a failed trial is lost. If three customers in a row got stuck on the same integration step, that is worth knowing before the fourth trial starts, but nobody records it when trials simply expire.
The trial tracker we build
- Trial record: when pre-sales sets up a trial, they log it against the opportunity with a short form: product, vendor trial reference, start and expiry dates, and the customer's success criteria.
- Activation check: vendor trial and activation emails in your shared inbox are matched to the record to confirm the customer activated, with a prompt if they have not.
- Usage signal: where the vendor portal reports trial usage, it is pulled in; where it does not, a short check-in email to the customer asks how it is going.
- Timed prompts: the account manager and engineer get tasks at the first week, midpoint and before expiry, each with the usage signal and the success criteria.
- Extension handling: if the customer needs more time, the extension request is prepared for the vendor's process and the new date recorded.
- Outcome: at expiry, the opportunity must be moved forward or closed with a reason, so the pipeline reflects reality and you learn why trials fail.
Trials with someone watching them
Customers hear from you while they are still evaluating, which is when help matters. Account managers know which trials are active, which are stalling and which are about to expire. Over time, the reasons trials are lost become visible, such as a product that is hard to set up or success criteria that were never agreed.
Pre-sales engineers also get a cleaner handover. They set up the trial, log it, and know the follow-up will happen without them having to remember it, so they can move to the next proof of concept.
Do trials go quiet in your business?
- Trial expiry dates are not recorded in your CRM.
- It is unclear whether pre-sales or sales follows up trials.
- You rarely know whether a trial customer has logged in.
- Customers have bought elsewhere after a lapsed trial.
- Opportunities with expired trials sit open in the pipeline.