How to lose a customer even before he starts studying, The TTP way!

Question

Let me begin by giving you a background info:
I signed up for a TTP trial earlier this month. Since I was busy working I couldn't really give it my 100%. I just saw some beginning modules & briefly skimmed through them for like 10-15 mins but really couldn't wrap my head around spending $300 (which is Rs 30,000) just for a quant course. And yes I'm an Indian so these dollar courses are really costly here.

Fast forward 2 weeks. I saw some posts on gmatclub praising TTP for it's content and methodologies and so I wanted to check whether I didn't do enough justice to the free trial which it deserves. So I wrote them an email asking them to just give 1 day of free access to their course and explaining to them why I couldn't spend time earlier, when I had initially signed up. Without even reading the mail, Mr. Jeffery decided to reply to my mail with an marketing email telling to me to subscribe their course and refer it to a friend & if I do that they'll give me 2 additional weeks with my current subscription. Mind you, this was a marketing email. He not only give me this ridiculous offer, he didn't even deny my request of a free trial while providing a reason.

Now until and unless I spend $300 or $99 (for 1 month which is their lowest rate), which is equivalent to Rs 7500 to just try out their course, I wont be able to decide whether TTP is indeed the right course for me or not. Or my other option is to go into some kind of account trading to get it at a cheaper cost. I mean other courses they at least read your mails and address your queries but somehow TTP thinks that sending a marketing mail would do the job without even opening a potential customer's mail.
Now I have no other way of reaching them but to write this post.

Scott if you are reading this, I'm really disappointed in you my friend. I just had a simple request of giving me few hours of free trial to understand your way of teaching but alas you didn't even reply. I'm sure if you guys would have had a call with me just for a few seconds to really understand my problem, you would've understood my issue. I remember your reply on my 1st ever post on gmatclub, asking which is the best course, I guess I found out who is definitely not the one.

And by the way, why do you guys need to store people's credit card details along with their CVVs just to access your free trial. On top of that their is no option of deleting credit card details after you've accessed the trial and are not satisfied with the course. What happens to the credit card details of people who don't end up signing on to your course? I'm sorry but this thing needs to be looked at. Almost all courses have an option of signing up without a credit card these days.

P.S: The objective of this course is not to hate TTP but to try an seek their attention to my problem. Let's see whether this post does the trick.

bb · Answer

Huh... They do have a trial but it is $1 for 5 days. Did you see it? https://gmat.targettestprep.com/plans#s ... al-sign-up
Did you try getting it?

By the way, It is $99/month and it includes both Quant and Verbal and $300 includes both Q and V. So it is not a quant only course...
Seems it may be a misunderstanding? Or am I misunderstanding something?

P.S. Sorry about the issue. By the way, what is the problem you are seeking to get attention to?

IApple · Answer

Hey,
Yeah so my problem is that I had already signed up for Ttp trial, due to work I couldn’t give it s fair shot. I just skimmed through it. Now my 5 day trial is over & I was requesting these guys to give me 1 additional day of free trial so that this time I could get a hang of the course & spend more time on the platform. But instead of listening to me, they kept sending marketing mails with useless offers & therefore I made a post about it.

Seems like you’re the only one who cares

Ttp team as usual ignored this post also.🥲

bb · Answer

Well... I don't want to sound harsh but it sounds like you are complaining (and expecting? everyone to rush to your assistance?) about not getting something for free AGAIN, after you got it for free in the first place? I mean, I would love to hear how it was customer service fault that you did not have time to use the free trial? What would be your suggestion for improvement?

It is fascinating... - I am loving the irony here. Imagine complaining about a restaurant that gave you a free meal and saying their service is no good because the free meal is not big enough and therefore, because the free meal is too small, you won't be eating there. Am I the only one who seems to think it is a bit ironic?

IApple · Answer

Welll bb,
I don’t think you understand my problem and I also think you haven’t understood my post too. My friend you have unfortunately completely missed the issue being raised.
I am not complaining about not getting a free trial. This was completely my fault that I missed it due to work issues. I’m complaining about the way it was handled when I asked them whether I could somehow get even a few hours of trial extension. 
Ttp not only didn’t reply to my mails asking for extension they just sent me a marketing mail asking me to join the course & refer it to a friend & if my friend joins then I get 2 weeks extension after I pay $300. Now you tell me, if you haven’t made up your mind about some course by missing it's trial & then you ask for an extension of just few hours, will you be happy with a reply from ttp’s side with this marketing offer? They could have said no & simply gave me a reason or they could have complied with my request. Either ways I would have been happy and completely satisfied. Instead they somehow felt that sending me this ridiculous offer was the right reply to my requests after ignoring me for 2-3 days. They sent me this offer not once but twice when I again asked them what we being done about my request.
Now let me tell you the aftermath of this story. They had finally responded yesterday by granting me a 24 hours trial which I really appreciate. They have asked me when to start with my 24 hour trial to which I replied with specific time details as to when they should start it. Till now I have had no response from their side & I’m here sitting clueless about what’s gonna happen next.

Again to reiterate, my problem is not with them not granting me my request, it’s with the way they chose to handle my request. It wasn’t like I was asking them a $100 discount on my course. They simple sent me a marketing email not once but twice to my repeated request and after 2 days chose to reply & still I don’t know when they are gonna start my free trial hence the issue still remains unresolved.

If this is how you handle potential customers emails then idk think you don’t need an mba to know how good this company is with their customer relations.
I respect you and appreciate your quick response but please don’t take sides and defend them unless you know the full picture. If you still have questions I would more than willing to get in touch with you and explain you my problem. I know they have a very symbiotic relationship (partnership) with gmatclub but please remember us members are the ones helping you sustain it.

And as for the irony, look how it’s just the two of us discussing this issue whereas Ttp is either unaware of this post or has ignored this post already. In your opinion what would I’ve done seeing that my query hasn’t resolved for 2-3 days with no reply. Once the reply comes, you find out that it has completely missed the issue being raised. I felt helpless and therefore wrote a post seeking their attention to my issue. Once again let me tell you, had they rejected my request and gave a satisfactory response, I would have never wrote this post and would’ve been completely satisfied which is how I think other companies would have handled this situation.

P.s: I would love if you can somehow get Scott’s attention to this issue. I’m sure he would rush to help me.

bb · Answer

So you made this topic because of 2 things: 2 marketing emails and not hearing back over a weekend. Is that a good summary?

I honestly don't know why someone would send you marketing emails as a reply.... I bet they were automatically sent because nobody would sit and send 1 marketing emails at a time to one dude or one woman during Christmas. I think you may have put 2 and 2 and got 17 somehow. Again, you are talking about not hearing for a special free extension request during Christmas... heck, I would not reply to an emails on Christmas - I have had enough pandemic stuff to deal with to work on Christmas. I mean, is there really something that would prevent you from just getting a second trial account with another email address? To me helpless is when your Google account is locked and you can't reach anyone - have you tried contacting google? I once waited a year for a copyright claim issue. That was frustrating but not helpless - I could have tried finding a friend/contact to reach them but I did not bother. It was not worth the time. But a free trial running out should not be in the category of helpless. I think you made yourself think you were helpless and I get it but it does not mean you are... lots of other courses - grass is always greener. I don't know why we are even having this discussion 🤷‍♂️ Sorry but not the best use of my time.

vektr · Answer

Hey

I know I am 4 years late to reply to this, but I am doing so because I came across this post while checking something about TTP on the google so I assume many other people might come across this.

First of all, I am sorry for bad experience you had.

But I agree with  bb  on this. And TTP is not paying me anything for this.

I'll give my honest opinion. TTP do listen to you. I bought their subscription twice and second time when I did, I asked them to give me some discount as I was low on money during that time. And they helped me. Scott didn't ask twice. Sure they are rigid about few things but I am pretty sure if they could, they would have given you access for a day or two (i don't think there would be provision for an hour.

One has to note that TTP is a huge platform and thousands of people would be texting them daily, and you texted them around Christmas. 
Sure it's not as big a holiday in India but you can't ignore the fact that this is one of the major holiday break for them and some of their employees might be on leave so they would be working with low workforce, so if I were to message them, I'd assume I would get reply after new year (specially if I am a non paying prospect).

You mentioned marketing email, that is a whole different story, a different team takes care of it and they broadcast it to all relevant emails they have, they can't nitpick it (even if they want to), i am a digital marketer and this is a completely different game. I understand your frustration but it can't be undone.

Now coming to your problem, you are a working professional and an Indian, I am pretty sure you would have multiple emails, if it was just a trial, you wouldn't have just one email. You could have signed up from different account and enjoyed another week of it, without annoying yourself or them.

Most importantly, in worst case scenario, even if they did it on purpose you can't blame them. You didn't check TTP in whole week, I don't know what you would have seen in an hour.

To other readers, don't judge TTP for this, try out yourself if it's good for you. If i have to give my perspective, its good place to start your preparation, good place to build fundamentals.

GMAT Club would intimidate you if you are just starting so, go to somewhere where you can learn basics, explore some courses, get free trials, and find the best one for you.

I realised late in my preparations, but for me best combo was 
1. TTP (for basics)
2. GMAT Ninja Youtube videos (for reinforecent) Shout-out to Charles for that
3. GMAT Club to put my learnings to test and get brige the GAP between basic learnings and real world GMAT. (kudos to BB for creating such a Fabolous platform)

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How to lose a customer even before he starts studying, The TTP way!

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