Try before you buy

You know how when you buy a pair of shoes it usually makes sense to try before you buy, right? It seems so simple as long as you are willing to go to the store. But how about software? How about a service like placing international phone calls? That particular market is a competitive place, filling up with companies eager to get a piece of the phenomenal pie. As a designer you face a very savvy, demanding, and motivated audience. They know what they want and they are quick to compare, judge and leave if they can't find what they want. It is also a market plagued with fraud and missed promises. Consumers know that, have paid the price and earning their trust is a real challenge. In addition - and just like any other web user - they are often eager to protect their privacy and reluctant to create yet another account giving away precious personal information. Like my mother says: "nothing is free and everything has its price", but are you willing to pay, why, and how?

The answer comes in steps: it involves first a free trial on the home page and a limited view of what users could get if indeed they would accept to sign up. The option of a free account with an expiration date would be ideal for the user but costly to the company if unlimited calling to any destination is available and such account would still require identification from the user. Users need to understand that there could be more to it than just a free or cheap call: the whole experience of placing a call could be improved in many ways. From the quality of the phone connection to the ease of managing and using your contact list. 

At MOBIVOX, for instance, robots continuously, 24/7, test the quality of the lines. The free call gives a good sense of the call quality but it is the tip of the iceberg. You want users to get a hint that behind that call there is a great potential for more value. Incentives such as free credits can be enticing, but demos and sneak previews of what their account would be like, how the service would work, are more effective ways to try before you buy. All of this needs to be easily available off the home page to quickly engage the user.