As developers of web-based software, we certainly intend to keep every customer that gives our products a try, but let's be honest -- from the customer's perspective, there is great value in having a low commitment threshold to try something out so that if you do decide not to use it or to walk away, there's very little time or expense lost. The ability to try something without getting into a huge commitment is valuable. It's one of the great advantages of web-based software.
There are several ways that web-based software gives you low commitment:
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Low or no cost: Most online products at least let you try them out for free.
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No contracts: If you do have to pay for a product online, you generally don't have a contract commitment beyond a month or so.
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Low investment: Since you are paying by subscription, the out-of-pocket expense is lower than purchasing something off the shelf.
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Low time commitment: This might be the biggest help as there's no time required to download, install, configure or troubleshoot the software. It's ready to go. If I'm going to have to install something on my own web server, that might take me a while since I don't spend much time configuring servers and I'll have to read up on the documentation. Plus, if something goes wrong, it might cost me hours of troubleshooting.
Online software has a great advantage in the lower commitment required to get started and use the software on an ongoing basis.
Posted on
Fri, January 18, 2008
by Tim Wall