Randy Whitcroft has over 25 years of hands-on sales, management, and customer engagement experience. He spent the early part of his career with several technology companies including Corel Corporation and Rational Software which was ultimately acquired by IBM. Since leaving to start his own company (Ideas2Revenue) in 2003, he and his team have assisted several organizations across North America to increase their business through the building of lasting customer relationships. In 2012, Randy purchased a local technology firm and is currently focused on bringing both firms together under the brand name of CERTnT which is focused on providing solutions that help organizations to increase revenues, build lasting trust-based relationships, and to get the most from their existing customer relationships. Along with being the Managing Partner of CERTnT, he is also a published author, and is actively involved within his local business community. He is a regular speaker at the Carleton University Lead To Win program, a member of the Invest Ottawa mentorship program, and an active member of the Sales Professionals of Ottawa association where he has just completed a 2 year term as the President of the association.
First off I can only go based upon what you have written....so am sure that there are other variables that need to be considered. However at a high level, here are some thoughts.
First you are right that customers expect to do a full trial before purchasing. Although the intention is for them to do this during the trial period, I would anticipate that many take the trial however life gets in the way and they do not actually test it and then you are into the chasing game to try and convert them.
On the surface they are trying to mitigate their risks before committing. So, if you want them to purchase without the trial version then you need to find a way to make them feel like they are not taking on any risks. Some ways of doing this is to have them sign up with a 30-60 day full refund policy, or have them sign up and then they have 60 days to cancel without incurring any costs. These are just simple examples where the risk is shared. Right now all the risk is on you and you also have a great deal of costs to support the environment to handle these trial versions. It has to be a win-win.
As for tailoring the product for their specific needs, this needs to be a fee based service. Even if just a small amount, the customer needs to have some vested interest in finding a solution as well...so if you take on these services without charging then again you are carrying all the risk.
Hope this helps. Happy to offer some more thoughts if you are able to offer some more context regarding your specific situation.