Had our first refund request today... 😔
Yesterday was pretty exciting as we landed a new customer AND met our sales goal for Cleaver for the month! woohoo! 🎉
Then... This morning I see an email from the very same customer that just signed up asking for a refund due to some "bugs." 😔💔⚰️
That was a huuuge bummer to see first thing in the morning...
Unfortunately, there was only one real mentioned bug that I could troubleshoot; fortunately, there doesn't appear to be a bug with said feature; unfortunately, though I asked for more details on the bug and I may never hear back... So, if there was a misconception or a bug I just wasn't able to repro, I may never know... 🤷♂️
But! There are always silver linings to have!
- Looking into the account with the mindset of something not working and something possibly being confusing, gave me a new perspective to dogfood with and I found some key UX things that should definitely be improved to reduce friction and human error occurrences
- I did notice some bugs that I wasn't aware of before while poking around
- The customer mentioned they were trying to move away from a competitor product and at least saw something in Cleaver that made it worth the effort - which is cool to hear! 😆
Ultimately, I wish the customer would have submitted a support request instead of just going straight to asking for a refund. We go the extra mile with customers to ensure they are having a good experience, to see how we might improve Cleaver, and to create raving fans. But, I understand when people just need something to work now and don't have time to wait around.
Alright, no more dwelling. Always keep moving forward!
The payment and refund process is now tested in production by a real customer!
And.. it worked flawlessly! 😂
Big thing: Invest in something like rollbar.com or bugsnag.com. They are very cheap to start out and are invaluable for a new software product. You don't want your users to report bugs before you know about them.
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"Alright, no more dwelling. Always keep moving forward!" - make sure to mention this in your Keynote later ;) Keep it up! 🙏
👍It makes me think of Walt Disney who apparently only cared where his creators are going; not what they did yesterday. He would have loathed daily scrum I'm sure. 🤣
It happens...weirdly I’ve actually got some pretty positive messages from people who canceled or unsubscribed (really polite feedback) whereas I have a few cantankerous users who love to send me hate mail but keep on paying. Don’t let it trip you up!
Also, one cancelled customer ended up buying several other digital products of mine later on, all of which would have been cheaper had they kept subscribing (discount for members).
In my experience, the segment of your audience that actually ends up paying is very different than the target audience of a product or service.
Keep it up! And focus on the bigger picture! Too small of a sample size to let this ruin your momentum!
Sorry but something completely unrelated that caught my attention when visiting your product is tailwind ui. I've been considering buying access but still on the fence, how's your experience been with using their components ?
Pretty good so far! It's easy to copy and paste and works great with vue.js. I've used components for both marketing and application UI. Though, I am re-working the marketing side a bit to make it look less "tailwindy".
@armgitaar Rather one now than many later! These events are inevitable and it all comes down to how you deal with them! so keep your chin up and take comfort that people are willing to pay for your product and it will only get better :)
Bad luck Adam, first for everything I guess :D
For a product going since 2017, I'm actually suprised you haven't come across it yet, your site looks awesome and i'm sure the product is solid, it's just seems like an inevitable user behaviour once you get to a certain scale.
What is your refund policy out of curiosity? I couldn't see anything on the site besides the 'start your 5 day free trial'. Is this the refund you're talking about? Otherwise could be worth adding something on it on the pricing page to give the user more confidence
Very true! We need to add the refund policy somewhere. Thanks for pointing that out!
This refund was for our brand new cloud version of Cleaver we started charging for a little over a month ago. They went on trial and then purchased almost right away.
Though... thinking of it, I'm not sure if we did ever have to issue a refund for our old desktop version... 🤔 Though, we weren't trying to make any kind of profit off of that and we were practically giving it away. Now, we're trying to build a sustainable business.
Just take it as bugs that are being fixed to avoid various future refunds. Also, I would suggest, after fixing the bug, go back to that customer and give him the first month (or product) free, just to gain a loyal customer maybe he can give you more suggestions in the process.
👍
Thanks for the suggestion! I extended their free trial a couple of months and asked them to come back and try again. We're improving current functionality and adding new functionality quite rapidly. They responded they'd check it out again - I hope they do and that we get another raving fan. 😃
This comment was deleted 6 years ago