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Avoid Experts Exchange Free Trial

Alice [PersonRank 0]

Thursday, December 10, 2009
14 years ago3,894 views

A word to the wise:

Don't get sucked into Expert's Exchange Free Trial unless you plan on actively using the site! I have no comments on the actual usefulness of the site b/c i never got to actively use it!

You'll get a welcome email reminding you to cancel in a month, then it auto-renews each month. I signed up for the trial, went out of the country, quit my job and completely forgot about it. Spoke to customer service about the situation and offered to pay for the one month where i actually used it. The customer service people were on the surface very polite, but unwilling to budge from their script, citing technical issues, inability to execute a refund, etc... They pride themselves on their "consistency" – read: inflexibility and on preying on the forgetfulness of their potential customers.

Admittedly, I made the mistake up signing up and forgetting. But I thought that perhaps this was a company that cared more their relationship with their customer than making an easy dime off someone's error. Experts Exchange's customer service is deeply unimpressive. But their online marketing plan worked like a charm!

Take care friends, alice

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Alice, ANY TIME a company wants you to sign up to a regular payment in order to use a free trial, that company is planning to make money from people who don't want to continue using the service.

In other words, it's always a trick to exploit people's forgetfulness and lethargy.

If the service is really good, they can offer a free trial without requiring people to sign up for payment, and people who value the service will be motivated enough to sign up after the free trial ends.

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