Pleasant Surprises during Demos

When you demo a product, you usually expect the worst to happen. Anything can go wrong here. The product could misbehave, your internet connection could be crappy, your video might go out of synch with the audio, you might accidentally forget to share screens,among other unforced errors! But when you talk to an existing customer, the challenge is a little different. Some of them bring to real life scenarios (also known as use cases) that challenge the technology from time to time. This a welcome change from the routine, "How do I do this, or how do I do that" conversation. This happens when you have sophisticated customers who quickly pick up on how to use the system and then start pushing the boundaries of technology asking interesting, deeper questions like, "In this situation,what do I do" type of questions. Sometimes you get lucky when your system is already equipped to handle these use cases, in others you return to the drawing board for a solution or a workaround.

Have you experienced pleasant surprises during demos or discussions with existing customers? Here is one where our customer figured out the solution but came back to us to just make sure she was doing the right thing. During one of their traditional brick and mortar classes (with a live instructor which we refer to as Instructor-led Training) the need for a particular document came up. The instructor had access to it and she shared it on the monitor and discussed it with the participants. But then all of the attendees requested for a copy of the same and there was no immediate solution for that besides emailing it to the attendees.

The instructor showed the presence of mind to upload the document to our platform as a course resource of the very same course that these participants had registered for. They could easily download the resource from their respective "MyCourses" page the next time the logged into the platform to download their certificate of attendance.

Additionally, there were a few attendees who did not pre-register for the class. That is, they were not on the roster but still attended the class because they showed up for it! The instructor was able to register them for the class after the session was over and then certify them via the system. So in effect, the overall registration and attendance certification process was seamless for all the attendees. 

It was one of those cases where quick thinking and a good know-how of a system helped them figure out an immediate work around for a problem, on the fly. It was a nice experience to be a part of. Have you had similar experiences? I'm sure you have. Feel free to share with us in the comments.