LogMeIn Free is discontinued with Surprise - How to lost customers in one day

LogMeIn is a Remote Access Tool that let you Access, manage and support computers remotely.
I have been using LogMeIn Free version for years to occasionally access to my home machine or help friends to troubleshoot their windows problem.

Today I receive an update from LogMeIn with the following email:


Yes, you read it right. Today is 21 January and they are terminating their free option immediately. It is actually fine for me as I only occasionally using it and its not hard for me to make the decision  say no to the 49USD/year subscription and start looking for alternative like TeamViewer.

What need to highlighted is actually how bad ( yes, I mean bad) their marketing is and also how they treat their customers. The email basically say nothing but "Pay me or get off", if you search around the internet you will find comments like below or in their Community Page:

This is a shame. As I receive an email notification today announcing the end of the service today! It's hard to make a shorter notice than that. Sorry, this shows no consideration to your customers base. I'll think twice before going for paid service alternative... I'm disappointed.

it is quite insulting as a longstanding user of logmein free to be slapped in the face with "SURPRISE! PAY US OR F#$* OFF!" in my opinion, this type of announcement really should have been a 1-3 month advanced notice type of thing. "hey guys, sorry, but this is going to go away. please pay us?". this is a scare tactic, plain and simple. "SURPRISE! you have to pay us, or you wont be able to remote in to your PC and install something different! MUAHAHAHAAH!"
Why their customers are so mad?


Communication

LogMeIn has actually been offering free version for many years so they have a huge customer base. These are invisible assets to their company. If I were them I will be extra careful on messaging this to customer. Having at least 1-3 months notice in advance would be a good notice period but definitely not one day. There isn't any notice that can be shorter than that, really.

This leave no option for the customer to look for alternative and it also not giving time to their customers to think whether they should subscript the service. You hasn't been giving your customer options to success.

They are not just hurting the free customer but also telling their paid customers that this the type of responsibility they are getting from the company.


The Content
Lets talk about the content, there is actually a 7 days grace period for existing customer and only started to count the next time you use it. It is shared in their blog as below:

Impacted users will be notified via email and in-product messages.  While messaging started today, users will be given 7 days to make a purchase decision about LogMeIn Pro.  To be clear, the 7-day grace period starts when you next login to the LogMeIn service.

It is fine but it is not communicated properly in the email. If they had clarify that in the email, perhaps the flame might not be escalate that fast. This to me, they haven't been reviewing the content before they send to their customers or they just don't care.


Customer as Your Advocate
Having been using LogMeIn Free for years. I didn't purchased it because its usage is not important enough for the yearly subscription and the price is steep for personal use. However as a satisfy user of your product, I had been sharing my experience to friends, colleagues, and even during meetings. I also demonstrated your software couple of times in the past. If my company was to consider to purchase a Remote Access Tool, LogMeIn will be on the list.

Look at it this way, I'm like your free sale person, sharing my good experience and promote your software without getting a single penny from you. I pretty sure there are tons of people like me and you just decide to kill them off.

I think this is a really bad move and you shouldn't fuck your customer like that, even they didn't contribute to your revenue. You can do some much better by just communicate this a little bit earlier and clearer to your customer. If we go through their forum, most of them are angry because of the bad communication rather that taking off the free option.

Thank you LogMeIn, I know what to share to my team tomorrow - How not to fuck your customer up in one day and what we can learn from it.

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