Try It, You’ll Like It—Or Will You? The Perils of Early Free-Trial Promotions for High-Tech Service Adoption

For your marketing

Possible founder application

Design trials around the user's chance to experience core value and the maturity of the product. Track activation and service quality during the trial alongside conversion, and test timing in your own setting.

Reported result

What the study found

The abstract characterizes free trials as a double-edged promotion: trial timing and how intensively consumers use the service during the trial matter to effectiveness, particularly while quality is uncertain and changing.

Research question

What the authors investigated

When do free trials help adoption of a high-tech service, and when can a poor early trial experience undermine it?

Design

The authors estimate a model of trial and regular adoption that accounts for learning from usage and word of mouth while service quality evolves, then simulate alternative trial policies.

Sample and setting

A rich customer dataset for an interactive digital television service, including trial subscriptions, adoption and usage behavior. The abstract does not report the number of customers.

Scope and transfer

Limitations to keep in view

The setting is one interactive television service and the conclusions come from an estimated model and simulations. The abstract provides no sample size or numeric policy effect; the result does not establish a general optimal free-trial duration for SaaS.

Research sources

Publisher abstract and bibliographic record; abstract-level summary, without numeric effect sizes not reported there.